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STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 

A MEMORIAL 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT 

ERECTED TO HIS MEMORY AT BRANDON VERMONT 

ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF ' 

HIS BIRTH, AND THE PROCEEDINGS 

CONNECTED THEREWITH 

TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS 

AND THINGS PERTAINING TO 

HIS LIFE AND 

CHARACTER 



COMPILED AND EDITED BY EDWARD S. MARSH 



PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS 
BRANDON, VT, 1914 



.X>73A/I3 



COPYRIGHT 1914 BY EDWARD S. MARSH 



^CI.A8 71918 



PREFACE. 

In the preparation of this memorial, which was a labor of love, 
the editor has received valuable assistance from institutions and 
individuals, and to them he takes this occasion to render his ac- 
knowledgements and express his thanks. To the following in par- 
ticular he desires to acknowledge his obligations for favors received: 

The Illinois State Historical Society for a photograph of the 
letter from Stephen A. Douglas reproduced herein, for permission to 
publish the letter to Hall Sims, and for other courtesies. 

William L. Patton, of Springfield, Illinois, the owner of the 
hitherto unpublished letters of Douglas to C. H. Lanphier, for per- 
mission to publish them. 

Judge Robert M. Douglas, of Greensboro, N. C, for a photograph 
of the check given by Douglas to Abraham Lincoln, reproduced herein. 

The Sheldon Museum, of Middlebury, Vermont, for the use of 
newspapers in its collections. 

The Rutland Herald, Rutland, Vt., for the use of its files. 

Congressman Frank E. Greene, of St. Albans, Vt. ^ 

President John M. Thomas, of Middlebury College. • 

Mr. E. G. Hunt, of New Haven, Vt., for information and favors 
received. 

Miss Shirley Farr, of Chicago and Brandon, Mr. F. H. Farring- 
ton, of Brandon, and all other Brandon citizens, who, by their con- 
tributions of money, counsel or information, have made this publica- 
tion possible. 

Brandon, Vt., January 18, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

Preliminary 5 

Account of the Exercises 6 

Addresses 7 

A National Event 25 

Other Memorial Exercises 26 

Letters 26 

Description of the Monument 32 

Albert G. Farr 34 

The Birthplace 35 

Death of Douglas's Father 35 

The Ancestral Graves 36 

Douglas at Middlebury in 1851 37 

Douglas's Celebrated Lef t-Handed Compliment to Vermont 39 

Douglas's Father Not a Graduate of Middlebury College 40 

Douglas at Brandon in 1860 41 

Daniel Roberts' Reminiscences 42 

Campaigning in 1843 44 

Address of Senator Jacob Collamer, of Vermont 46 

Address of Hon. E, P. Walton, Congressman from Vermont. ... 48 

Letter of Robert M. Douglas 51 

Unpublished Letters of Stephen A. Douglas 53 

Autobiography of Stephen A. Douglas 57 

Estimates of Douglas 71 

A Few Words in Conclusion 75 

Appendix : Address of Hon. F. L. Fish 80 



PRELIMINARY. 

At the annual banquet of the Dunmore Hose Company, held at 
the Brandon Inn on the evening of March 14, 1912, Rev. C. W. Turner 
of Brandon delivered an address on Stephen A. Douglas, inspired by 
the fact that Douglas was born in Brandon April 23, 1813. At a 
subsequent meeting a committee was appointed to take steps toward 
the appropriate observance of the approaching centenary, consisting 
of Ex-Gov. E. J. Ormsbee, chairman, A. G. Farr, Rev. C. W. Turner 
and F. H. Farrington. At the annual town meeting held March 4, 
1913, $1000 was appropriated for the expenses of the proposed celebra- 
tion. At a special town meeting held April 15, 1913, the above named 
committee were confirmed in office, and C. M. Winslow was added 
to the committee, and the selectmen of the town, W. B. Avery, F. L. 
Smith and F. E. Kingsley, were made a part of the committee 
ex officio. 

Mr. Albert G. Farr presented to the town a monument in memory 
of Stephen A. Douglas, and it was erected on Grove Street, nearly in 
front of the cottage in which Douglas was born. The town, through 
its committee, graded and seeded the adjacent ground, changed the 
course of the road in front of the Baptist Church, and placed the 
monument in position. The space in which the monument stands is 
now known as "Douglas Green." 

After a deal of correspondence and consideration, the committee 
secured Hon. James Hamilton Lewis, U. S. Senator from Illinois, as 
the principal speaker at the unveiling of the monument, a manifestly 
appropriate selection, Senator Lewis being of the same political faith 
as Douglas, and representing the same state in the Senate. 

For various reasons, it was found impracticable to hold the 
exercises on the exact anniversary of the birthday, and they finally 
took place June 27, 1913. 



ACCOUNT OF THE EXERCISES. 

The public and business buildings of the village, and the principal 
streets, were beautifully and lavishly decorated with flags, banners 
and bunting by Metzger Bros., of Rutland, while the private house- 
holders hung out their flags. The village never glowed with such a 
mass of patriotic color before. The attendance was estimated at 2500 
people, including many from out of town. The speakers' stand was 
erected in front of the Baptist Church, close to the Douglas cottage 
and the monument. Music was furnished by the Brandon Concert 
Band, the band-stand being located in the park near by. Besides the 
speakers, Ex-Gov. John A. Mead, and other more or less distinguished 
men, occupied seats on the speakers' stand. Ex-Gov. E. J. Ormsbee, 
chairman of the committee, presided and introduced the speakers. 
The weather was exceedingly hot, but otherwise all that could be 
desired. It had been hoped and expected that Robert M. Douglas 
and Robert T. Lincoln, sons respectively of Douglas and Lincoln, the 
great rivals of 1858 and 1860, would be present, but both were pre- 
vented by ill health. A meeting of these men, on such an occasion, 
would have been of great historic interest. 

proceedings at the unveiling of the monument. 

Governor Ormsbee: 

Ladies and Gentleman, and that includes, as a matter of course, 
all of our invited guests, we don't need to enlarge. We will now 
proceed to the exercises of the occasion. It has been said, and I 
adopt the saying, that Stephen A. Douglas was the greatest political 
leader that Vermont ever produced. I take that as my text, — but 
I am not going to follow it by a sermon ; others will do that. We will 
now proceed to unveil this beautiful monument or tablet presented 
to the Town of Brandon by her excellent friend, Albert G. Farr, of 
Chicago, not only is it beautiful but appropriate and splendid in charac- 
ter, design and finish, as I expect you will say when you see it. 

The monument will be unveiled by Honorable Martin Francis 
Douglas, grandson of Stephen A. Douglas, whose memory we celebrate 
today, and that unveiling will proceed now. 

(Monument unveiled by Martin Francis Douglas.) 
(Prolonged applause.) 



Governor Ormsbee: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I now introduce to you Honorable 
Allen M. Fletcher, the Governor of Vermont. (Applause.) 

Governor Ormsbee: 

Your committee had thought to engage a speaker for this occasion, 
and sought to engage one of no ordinary or limited or sectional 
character. We wanted to secure, if possible, a good Democrat, for 
there are good Democrats, we have to admit that fact, even in Ver- 
mont. We wanted to secure at the same time a man of national 
fame, not confined to one school district at least, but a man known far 
and wide, as is the name of the man whose memory we meet to 
celebrate today, Stephen A. Douglas, and we flatter ourselves that 
we have succeeded in finding such a man, not only a Democrat, but a 
man of national fame, a man fit and suitable for this occasion, and 
this is the Honorable James Hamilton Lewis, United States Senator 
from the State of Illinois. Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great 
pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Lewis. 

address of senator lewis. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I want to thank your prominent townsman, your former Governor, 
for his very kind reference to me, but before I begin to talk to you, 
there are some things that must be straightened out. The Governor 
first would tell you that I am here as a Democrat, and calls me a "good 
Democrat," and then pours out water for me to drink. Now I know 
what the Governor meant when he referred to good Democrats and 
poured water for me. He meant that only good Democrats drink 
water. (Laughter.) 

I appreciate Governor Ormsbee's expression that the person who 
should be here upon this occasion ought to be a man free from such 
a thing as mere partisanship. Well, let me tell you that it is very 
difficult in these days for any man living in the zone where I live 
to ascertain exactly what it is that marks the line of distinction between 
the party Democrat and the party Republican. 

Ladies and gentlemen, for myself I find a pleasure in this occasion. 
I pray I may be indulged by you with some little reference to myself 



that you may understand why I feel a degree of keen pleasure in 
being here and that you may understand, though physically ill and 
exceedingly so, I rescued myself sufficiently in order that I might 
be here. About fifteen years ago I was living in the State of Wash- 
ington, on the northwest coast of this country ; I was born in Virginia, 
reared in Georgia and schooled in Virginia, and went to the North- 
west with a view of being, if I could, a lawyer. Subsequent days 
followed in my career, and I became the Congressman-at-large from 
the State of Washington, serving at Washington City, with the usual 
lack of knowledge which youth possesses, and a want of judgment 
that inexperience always gives. 

One of the very best gifts in my life was to know a distinguished 
gentleman, of great wisdom, of great power intellectually, when on a 
visit to the University where I had been a scholar, — I refer to the 
late Senator Morrill of Vermont. We became friends. We after- 
wards knew each other when I was a new member of Congress. His 
excellent counsels were always at my command. I never allowed an 
opportunity to pass me, when I needed counsel of anyone, that I did 
not feel free to seek that distinguished and experienced source. So 
well known was my feeling toward Senator Morrill that when he 
passed away I was honored by being named as one of the committee 
to bring his remains back to splendid old Vermont, where today they 
are sleeping in the honored memory of his countrymen. I came to 
Montpelier, and there upon the first visit I had ever made to this 
State, was honored with the acquaintance of the Legislature then in 
session, and met many of your eminent citizens, the memory of which 
has remained with me during these years, much to my delight and 
pleasure. 

When I moved to Chicago to take up my home, one of the first 
acquaintances that came to me as a friend was a distinguished citizen 
of Vermont, who remained my guide, counsellor and friend; and 
when your present distinguished Senator, Senator Dillingham, pre- 
sented the request of your honorable committee that I honor myself 
by coming here to officiate upon this occasion, I very freely told 
him that I had never had the opportunity in the past to cultivate the 
acquaintance of or know the people of Vermont, as I would delight 
to do, and because of that I would have you know, ladies and gentle- 



men, I chose to come here for the personal gratification it affords me. 
Added to this was, of course, that other thought : I am from IlHnois, 
as has been referred to by your distinguished citizen, and come to you 
from the pubHc councils of the nation. When an invitation comes to 
any man from Illinois to give him an opportunity to express some 
word of praise and admiration for the great character who did so 
much to immortalize that State, such person so honored with such 
chance could not well, indeed, decline it. I, therefore, owe to Illinois, 
that in her behalf I should come where I might be permitted to speak 
of her late distinguished and devoted son ; and that the privilege was 
afforded me here in the State where he was born, made doubly gratify- 
ing the opportunity and enhanced the pleasure I enjoy in its fulfilment. 
I join, indeed, with your committee, in my praise for the under- 
taking which greets my eye ; beautiful in design, chaste in its construc- 
tion, modest in its appearance, yet shapely in strength, like the one 
whom it represents. Gentlemen of Vermont, gentlemen of this 
beautiful town, I would that you allow me to say to you, that you 
deserve well because you have paused from the arduous labors of 
your existence, from the trying cares of your occupations to con- 
template some duty you owe to yourselves. It may be, gentlemen 
of Vermont, nothing but an experience to you today, that afterwards 
you might allude to as a passing picture upon the panorama of your 
life's experience, that at Brandon on the 27th day of June, in 1913, 
you were present when there was an unveiling, in the presence of a 
distinguished assemblage of men and women, of a monument to the 
distinguished son of Vermont. And there, gentlemen, you may be 
content to leave your observation. But I would have you go farther. 
I speak to you who may be fathers : there isn't a little boy in this 
assemblage, who, if forced in after days to struggle against the same 
vicissitudes in life, which were the history of this distinguished man 
in his childhood, and who may wish to be remembered when dead, 
in the affections of his countrymen, as is this distinguished man, that 
the occasion will not animate. This will inspire the youth to hope 
for the future for themselves and do much to deny that creed which 
is now gaining such ground throughout our whole land, that only 
wealth can achieve on the one hand, or power of policies attain success 
on the other. You young men likewise who aspire to the confidence 

9 



of your neighbors ; you who dream of occupying the positions of trust 
now held by those older than yourselves ; you, likewise, may take 
the stimulus of this occasion and apply its significance, and feel with 
a sense of gratification that your fellow citizens around you may find 
something in your life to approve and that out of the fullness of time 
they may speak an appreciation of the things you do, and praise 
of the life you have lived, if you only confine it to such objects as 
are virtuous, as may command the love of your fellows, and gain 
the admiration of your countrymen. 

You women, who find it agreeable to grace this occasion: this 
means much for you ; whether it shall mean your boy, your brother, 
the man of your house who lives today, or those who shall come 
after you — many a mother in the land may point to those monu- 
ments which decorate hallowed spots in this beautiful State, as a 
continuing incentive to the ambitious youth and a hope to the child 
for whom at night she offers prayers unto God. 

If there be no other mission that the people of this community 
have performed in erecting this monument before the eyes of this 
multitude, this alone will be sufficient, — that it offers encouragement 
to living mankind to remember that in splendid deeds and in a glorious 
life, whether the origin be humble or poor, exalted or great, there will 
be left in the memory of mankind some appreciation of a true nature, 
of a true man, and some gratitude, at least, in the hearts of his country- 
men for his noble sacrifices for patriotism and for country. 

Gentlemen of Vermont, it is, of course, a truism to say that 
the object of this gathering is not to pay tribute to a mere person. 
The citizen of my town (Chicago), a native of your own, who pre- 
sented this monument out of respect to one of your own, did not 
expect that it should be received and planted before your eyes merely 
as some unfading memorial of the present time to one of God's atoms, 
a man. It was reared that it might suggest to you some events of 
the life of a man. It appears in its glory before you that it may speak 
and sound the greatness of a life that was lived in order to accomplish 
something for other men. 

You who have travelled in classic Greece, recall that outside of 
Athens at what is known as the Seventh Pillar, there is inscribed the 
celebrated expression of the ancient Pericles, proclaiming that a land 

10 



without history is a country without heroes. Emerson, having occasion 
to allude to this inscription, said that in Republican America it would 
be reversed, and the expression would be that a land without heroes 
would be a country without history. Because in America there is no 
spot that is not chastened by sacrifices made either for liberty of 
men or for the glory of mankind. There is no community where 
there are no heroes in the memory of the generation which exists, 
those who brought to their lives the glory of sacrifice on the battle- 
field or splendor of devotion to citizenship. 

Then, my fellow citizens, I come not here today to recount the 
well-known story of the early life of the hero of this occasion; I am 
not to speak of the humble beginning in the humble residence that 
sits there opposite our doings today ; nor will I speak of the details 
of the life of one who became immortal in our country. I rather 
choose to speak to you of the things for which he stood. I rather 
avail myself of this precious hour to remind you, my fellow country- 
men, of some of the things which, now, in the calm light of reflection, 
we can correctly judge, and thus remedy the mis judgment and error 
of our people against a great American. 

It is to be regretted, gentlemen of Vermont, that, as a matter 
of experience, while a man lives, justice is hardly his if his life is 
active. While a man endures in the performance of public afifairs 
he is judged by contemporaries either in a spirit of party rancor on 
the one hand, or an over-zealous enthusiasm on the other. 

Joshua Reynolds, at the close of one of his greatest lectures, 
before the National Geographical Society in London, referring to great 
painters, said : "The Present is ever at war with the Future. The 
man who hopes to achieve the fame of the To- Morrow must abandon 
the hope of fame of the Present, and he who would allure to himself 
the mere prize of To-day, must remember he will forfeit the calm judg- 
ment in the great coming days in which he would love to be both loved 
and praised." 

Stephen A. Douglas today is an example of the truth of this 
dictum of the distinguished artist. Then we ask ourselves, what were 
the particular things which this citizen of America stood for which 
occasioned him either to be admired by some or condemned by others ? 



11 



What were the particular theories of government which he sought 
to advance? 

Were you to have assembled here in Vermont 50 years ago, 
there would have arisen in your midst, schooled and learned as they 
were, men to speak of the heroes of the time and political matters of 
the day. From these you would have heard the statement that 
Stephen A. Douglas committed his offence against government because 
he stood for the doctrine called state's rights as against national 
unity. You would have been told that the doctrine for which Douglas 
stood was in direct variance with the best theories of government; 
that it was against the principle of the liberty of men ; and you would 
have known that there were at that time in this country, splendid 
citizenship and noble patriotism that could not possibly agree with the 
doctrines of Douglas. But here in this hour, when political rancor 
is stilled, and partisan politics is dead, when peace has settled upon 
us and home life has been renewed in all parts of this great republic 
and the genuine spirit of citizenship beats in the heart of every true 
American, men may view their fellow men without prejudice on the 
one hand or undue praise on the other, and in such hour the real 
truth may be spoken, and history may record that justice is to be 
done a fellow citizen. 

It is because of that consciousness on my part that I make free 
to revive to the minds of my fellow citizens what was the real funda- 
mental political issue at that time. 

You will recall, gentlemen of New England, that from your 
homes, your sons went to the great West with a view to settling it 
and establishing there liberty and domestic institutions. Here in New 
England originated a theory of government which can be described as 
Home Rule. So, when your forefathers founded Connecticut, Maine, 
Massachusetts, and Vermont, there originated in Vermont the germ 
of the doctrine of Home Rule, and it has grown to such an extent that 
she would not today abandon for any consideration her town govern- 
ment, her doctrine of Home Rule, by which her citizens may, by 
their ballot, make their own government. 

This man, Stephen A. Douglas, came from you. 

Your ancestors had learned of the government in Greece; they 
had read and knew of the Israelitish government. The idea of Home 



Rule was so strong that tribes went to war with each other in order 
to vindicate their positions. When Greece had reached her highest 
point of civilization it was when Athens, Syracuse, Corinth and Sparta 
in themselves were countries, small republics, local governments, with 
the right to manage their own affairs and be sovereign within their 
own domains. They were opposed to the idea of centralization, of 
having from any one point, at a distance, direction or dictation to the 
home government where the citizen lived, — as to how he should rear 
his family, school his children or worship his God. 

From this theory of government your early fathers drew their 
inspiration as against the theory of centralized power which Rome 
presented. Your fathers chose to adopt that doctrine of home rule 
and local self-government presented by the Greeks. Thus in New 
England they laid the foundation of home rule. 

Douglas, as a boy, here upon the street corners of Brandon, 
from the books he read, from the methods of public men he knew, 
adopted this doctrine of home rule and self-government. As a young 
man, he read of the War of the Revolution and the fight of your 
fathers against the domination of kings. He knew what the Revolu- 
tion was fought for; he knew the glory of the Green Mountain Boys 
and all of their efforts and sacrifices recounted in the history of the 
Republic. When he moved to the West, what cardinal doctrine could 
have been so steeped in his heart and entrenched in his mind as that 
which you taught him from your doorsteps in his childhood, — that 
which you taught him as a young scholar, and which he learned at the 
Academy ? 

Douglas carried this idea of home rule and the liberty of men 
out to the West, and when he settled in that great Mississippi valley 
and the strife came on as to the form of government among those 
people, what was he to do? What had he been taught in Vermont? 
Could be have forgotten the theory of your fathers' government? 
Could he have ignored the doctrines which you taught him? Could 
he have known any other theory of government than that which he 
had seen give such good results here in his New England home? 
Could any of you gentlemen of God's church move out to the land 
of Mohammed and easily change your faith, or begin teaching some 
religion wholly distinct from that which you had learned in your 

13 



youth by the side of the holy altar? You old soldiers, who wear 
the bronze button on your breast, I say to you, could you depart 
into some new country, under the flag of despotism, and fight for 
anything there as you fought for the liberty of mankind? 

What else could this man do? How else could he live except 
by the teachings you imparted to him in the State of Vermont? 

What was meant, my fellow citizens of Vermont, by the oft- 
quoted expression of "state's rights"? 

Professor Draper, in a discussion, had occasion to observe that 
by the mere use of some one term the ideals of man can wholly be 
destroyed, and all the theories that have been built up as necessary to 
government completely rendered without influence. He meant to say, 
that so inclined are we at times to catch a phrase and add a meaning 
to it, and pass it from one meaning to another, without ourselves 
considering its real meaning, thus giving it a false meaning, that finally 
it arrives to where it presents the very reverse of its original mean- 
ing. What, then, did Douglas mean when he referred to the theory 
of state's rights? There never was in the mind of any thoughtful man 
in America the thought that state's rights meant that the states, 
sovereign in matters of home rule, were to be sovereign over the 
nation in national matters. Douglas, taking his text from New Eng- 
land, when he arrived in the West found two great problems. One 
was, the building of new states in the new territory opened, and 
the form of government that those localities should assume. The 
other was that baleful, baneful question of slavery, which had ac- 
cursed every nation that had come into being. These two confronted 
him. It was natural that the people of New England should have 
confused Douglas's idea when he expressed his mind regarding 
"squatter sovereignty" and assume that he meant that "state's 
rights" meant the right of the states to have slavery, notwithstanding 
any declaration on the part of the federal government. Others would 
say that state's rights meant the rights of the states sovereign over 
the federal government to secede from the nation, if at will and 
pleasure they chose to do so, despite the will and pleasure of the nation. 

What Douglas's idea upon secession was when he lived in New 
England, it is impossible to glean by any absolute expression of his 
own; but New England had learned that the right of secession came 

14 



when government became so onerous or so severe that those who 
had to endure it could endure it no longer, consistent with liberty. 
In New England the Declaration of Independence pointed out that 
when any government became burdensome, it was the right of the 
people to alter or abolish it. Whether Douglas carried to the far 
West the idea that the states had a right to secede merely by the 
decision of themselves, I am not able to state. But we do know that 
he never entertained for a moment the thought that the states ever had 
the right to secede, when the question confronted him directly, — 
when he realized that the nation would oppose such action and the 
right granted would mean the dissolution of the Union. 

Then we come, my fellow citizens, to trace for a moment his 
career, in order to ascertain what real place in history he deserves, this 
man who has been so unjustly misrepresented, or honestly misunder- 
stood. 

When the question arose as to whether those states, — Illinois, 
where he lived, a new state ; Nebraska, the territory ; Kansas, the 
territory ; California, the new state, coming from territory to state- 
hood, should be sovereign in their local affairs — when he voiced his 
belief that those different peoples had a right to decide for them- 
selves the form of government they should have, it was claimed, of 
course, that he meant to give them, the right to decide for slavery 
within their borders, and thereafter to have it protected. But that 
you may see how manifestly unfair this was, — we find that when 
California came into the Union and her Constitution was presented 
to the United States Senate by Senator Cass of Michigan, a Democrat 
also, some question arose as to the land of California and how it 
should be disposed of, — Douglas, guided by the doctrines he had 
learned in Vermont, arose, and opposed the arguments of his fellow 
Democrat and the doctrine that was urged, seeking to prescribe by 
Congress in what manner the land of California should be enjoyed 
by her people, — arguing that when she came into this Union she 
should be allowed to prescribe her own laws, as a sovereign state, by 
her own people. 

So you will see, my fellow citizens, there was neither the sug- 
gestion of slavery as an institution, nor the thought of it. His idea 
was that of home rule; his was the theory that without home rule 

IS 



there could be neither patriotism nor sovereignty of the government. 
He had learned that lesson which you all have learned in some form 
or other. You take from the town of Brandon the right to govern 
its own affairs, and allow Montpelier to say by her Legislature sitting 
there how you shall educate the scholar, how your men shall live, what 
shall be their occupation, — what rights would Brandon have against 
that centralized power? What a cry would come forth from the 
citizens of Brandon if they were unable to govern their home affairs ! 
Their minds would revert to the sacred memory of the fathers of 
Vermont and the history of New England, and they would cry "Give 
us liberty of personal action by our vote, or end the farce of free- 
dom!" 

So Douglas argued, it being the doctrine of home rule he learned 
in New England, because he realized that if you take from a people 
the right to govern themselves in their private affairs, they first become 
resentful, and then those who are benefitted become the favorites, 
the others the oppressed. It was because of this theory that this 
distinguished scholar in history and philosophy sought to incul- 
cate these principles in the great West, that the glorious republic 
might be preserved. So, when the constitution of Kansas was pre- 
sented for the consideration of the people, thinking that it might 
contain some clause touching the question of slavery within the limits 
of Kansas, which would, of course, be natural, in view of the temper 
of the times, he then did as he had previously done respecting the land 
of California, insisted on the very same doctrine as to Kansas. It 
was a very natural thing, also, that he should urge that the constitu- 
tion of Kansas, as that of Nebraska, should be so framed that the 
people within the limits of the states should create their own govern- 
ment. All this was the natural outcome of the teachings which were 
his, the life which he led and the doctrines which he taught. 

So you will see, gentlemen of Vermont, that when there came 
back to Vermont the theory that one of her sons was the advocate 
of slavery, because he was an advocate of the doctrine of home 
rule and state's rights, — you will see at once how manifestly wrong 
it was, how unfair the accusation brought against him. 

Many were the ideas expressed in that stormy hour that we 
would never hear in these days of peace. What is the situation now? 

16 



Let us pause for a moment and test Douglas and the position he 
occupied, as tried by time. 

We have no war now, — Heaven be praised ! No contention 
among our fellow countrymen that threatens to involve us in war. 
We can now view the matter with the calm judgment of today. 

There is California now, — 50 years after Douglas sought to es- 
tablish the policy of home rule, for the home government of her 
schools. During the administration of President Roosevelt it was 
prescribed that the Japanese, a people foreign to our religion, foreign 
to our mode of living and foreign to our sense of domestic life, should 
not be permitted to send their children to the same school houses 
used by the children of American parents. No attempt whatever to 
prevent them from having the same school advantages, the same 
books, the same form of teaching, the same opportunity of education ; 
but merely the separation of alien races. The Japanese nation at 
once set up a protest against separate schools in America for the 
Japanese and American children. 

Then it was that you saw the doctrine of Stephen A. Douglas 
commending itself to President Roosevelt, for it appeared to him, by 
the doctrine of home rule she (California) had a right to prescribe 
the form of teaching, and regulate the schools for her children, without 
dictation from Washington. 

California urged her rights as a sovereign state, asking merely 
local home rule in matters only within the state and not involving the 
national constitution. If you will pardon a bit of personal experience, 
— I happened to be in Tokio, Japan, at the celebration of the 20th 
anniversary of their constitution. I held an insignificant commission, 
which gave me the privilege of being present at that assembly. It 
was impossible for those good people to have any possible appreciation 
of our dual form of government. They could not understand why 
the President of the United States at Washington, as the Emperor at 
Tokio directed matters in distant parts of the empire, could not from 
his seat direct California as to what should be her action regarding 
her state matters. 

It was Stephen A. Douglas who had educated the great West 
to the theory that if they ever allowed the principles of home rule 
to be taken away from them they would have a centralized power, 

17 



and following that there would be a few favorites and many oppressed. 
The favorites would mount upwards until they reached the very high- 
est apex of power, while the humble man would remain a subject 
instead of a citizen, such as he had the right to be under the constitu- 
tion. 

It was Stephen A. Douglas who learned these lessons in grand 
old Vermont, and in turn taught them to the great West in the doc- 
trines of liberty and home rule. It was because of this teacher and 
the lessons he brought from Vermont that the West, in which I live, 
is now able to govern its matters at home, its purely state matters, 
as their ideas of justice and right direct. 

Is it to be wondered then, that President Wilson, a Democrat, 
like Roosevelt, Republican, in recommending this theory of our govern- 
ment, was compelled to say to Japan, lately, respecting the question 
of land and land tenure in California, just exactly as President Roose- 
velt had been compelled to say respecting the form of schools that 
California should prescribe for her own within her own state? 

On this platfrom I am honored by the presence of distinguished 
lawyers of Vermont, a state which has given such men as Edmunds 
and Phelps to the country, the world, — they will recall that the highest 
court in the land (the Supreme Court of the United States) last week 
endorsed the doctrine of Stephen A. Douglas, for when the Republican 
state of Minnesota, the Republican state of Kansas, the Democratic 
state of Alabama and the Democratic state of Nebraska joined to- 
gether to protest to the Supreme Court of the United States against 
the attempt of the federal government at Washington, through the 
United States courts, to enjoin the states and prevent the execution 
of their legislative acts to regulate railroad rates within the states, 
laws to protect the depositors in their home banks, to prescribe a fair 
rate for light and heat within the cities ; and when the federal 
government upon the theory of centralization, and dictation from a 
central head, through the federal courts, enjoined those sovereign 
states, binding the arms of their attorney-generals, paralyzing their 
executives, rendering useless the ballot, — these states, without regard 
to party lines, joined in one solemn array before the Supreme Court 
of the United States to be heard to contend again for the doctrine 
taught by Stephen A. Douglas, of Vermont, of Illinois, of America, — 

18 



the old doctrine of home rule. These men appealed to the Supreme 
Court of the United States for their remedy, and when the opinion 
came a week ago, we there saw the reflection of the teachings of 
Douglas, and the Supreme Court adopted Douglas's doctrine in the 
construction of the federal constitution, and held that it was not in 
the power of a centralized government to restrain local home rule 
in a state. 

It is not false pride in you Vermonters that you can look back 
over the lapse of years and reflect that your fellow citizen, a native 
of this state, taught the nation a doctrine, which now has borne such 
fruit in its fulness, but which has been so misunderstood and mis- 
represented. 

I wish to call your attention to the next era in Douglas's history, 
which becomes important to us today : Douglas, standing alone and 
unsupported in the United States Senate, observed that if England 
were allowed to locate her government in Central America, and gain 
a foothold there, with Canada at the north and Honduras at the 
south — it would be but a little while when the United States would 
be in the heart of this great imperial body, with its head England, and 
its feet laved in the waters of Central America ; that we would be in 
the imperial grasp, surrounded and controlled by a foreign govern- 
ment. 

Thus, when the treaty was offered America, known as the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty, because of Clayton representing our government and 
Bulwer representing the English government, it provided conditions 
under which a canal might be constructed through the isthmus, but 
gave to England the right to locate in Honduras and take a part of 
Central America ; and it was also provided in the treaty that any 
canal or water-way that should be cut could only be fortified and its 
shores inhabited by Americans with the consent of the English. There 
seemed at that time not a voice in that senate, composed of eminent 
statesmen and learned men, to be raised against this manifest injustice, 
the evil of which no man could see far enough to measure, until that 
native of Vermont arose, thoroughly versed in the doctrine which he 
had learned in Brandon ; honestly believing and earnestly teaching 
that no royal government should exist in America — Douglas believing 
this, raised his voice against that treaty and laid down the doctrine 

19 



of what he called the American foreign policy, — which was, that in 
America there should only be American government ; that there should 
not be established in this country any off-spring of kingship in Europe. 
That had been settled by the Revolutionary fathers, — that no imperial 
form of government or monarchy should be introduced on this con- 
tinent. In that he saw the death of liberty. He saw the country 
fortified by Canada to the north and by Spain to the south, and we 
as a country surrounded and confined, and the first moment America 
should raise her voice in protest against any wrong, the imperial gov- 
ernment of England would interfere and America would be obliged to 
submit. In the name of the Revolutionary fathers he raised his voice. 
He protested against it ; he prophesied that if this treaty were allowed 
to go through in this condition, America would rue it. That there 
would come a time when she would raise her voice to defend herself 
but it would be too late. He was again charged with wrongful motives ; 
he was charged that his purpose was to create again the old strife, 
and to breed again the old discontent. But he was not to be moved. 
The strong, rock-ribbed New Englander was there; the man taught 
of his fathers was there; the man who came from Puritan stock was 
there ; the man who came from religious stock that believed in God 
and justice was there ; the man who believed in all things noble was 
there; the man who had chosen to devote his life to the good of man- 
kind was there ! And now, my fellow citizens of Vermont, you read 
in your papers that that very treaty that Stephen A. Douglas raised 
his voice against and from which he prophesied that evils would 
arise is interpreted in the very way that Douglas said would be 
claimed, — England now claims that by virtue of that treaty, which 
Douglas raised his voice in protest against, we have no right to fortify 
the canal, to defend it against the approach of enemies without the 
consent of England. That we have no right to locate American 
colonies within certain boundaries, without the consent of England ; 
and more, that Vermont shall not send her granite or marble through 
the canal, our own canal, without the consent of England and England 
saying what tolls shall be paid by Americans for the purpose of 
shipping American products. 

Where is the spirit of Douglas today? It hovers about us to see 
your approval of his position when he prophesied in his wisdom the 

20 



very crisis that has come upon America, which involves us in ques- 
tions of greater importance than any since the days of slavery and the 
civil war. Had Douglas's view of American foreign policy been then 
adopted, no deep and certain wrong would have been done in that 
treaty, such as now threatens us. 

The principle of conducting our own affairs in America (known 
as the Monroe Doctrine), had been promulgated by our fathers for 
the benefit of Americans in America. Douglas was for its spirit, 
others merely mouthed its letter. This recalls to mind the saying 
of the great Cicero, that there comes an hour when mankind confess 
their error and are glad to admit themselves wrong that they may 
admit a wronged brother was right. 

We turn at this point to recall the memory of the patriotism of 
Douglas. When it was plain that a frenzied, maddened sentiment in 
the South was bent upon fastening the institution of slavery upon the 
country or dismembering the republic, when, in the wild enthusiasm 
of these men who professed to be leaders and statesmen, they gained 
a following, — men who blindly rushed after the leaders to a point 
where this Union was threatened with dismemberment, — and Stephen 
A. Douglas beheld such was the likelihood, he was called in by his 
late great opponent, Mr. Lincoln. He, who had carried on the debates 
with him all through Illinois, he looked to him for guidance and 
counsel in this hour of trouble, though he was Republican, and Douglas 
a Democrat. Douglas had conducted joint debates with Lincoln upon 
the questions of the day, and at Jonesboro, in Illinois, Lincoln had 
said: 'T wish it known that I agree with Judge Douglas that in 
domestic matters a state has a right to do as it pleases even as to the 
matter of slavery." Thereafter, he and Douglas well understood each 
other and Stephen A. Douglas, defeated in his laudable ambition to 
be President, his ambition crushed, his day of hope clouded, his future 
dimmed so far as political honors might be concerned, his health 
broken, went to Lincoln, and, seeking only for the good of his country, 
tendered his efforts to aid his successful rival. Mr. Lincoln said 
to him, "the hour has come when I fear something must be done; 
we must be ready; I feel we should order fifty thousand men to 
shoulder arms." Douglas said (as reported in the private corre- 
spondence of Stanton), "Mr. Lincoln, if there are men to be sum- 

21 



moned, let there be enough, let there be two hundred thousand and 
at once !" Lincoln said to him : "Douglas, do you understand the 
situation ?" Douglas, his face blanched, replied : "Unfortunately, too 
well!" He well understood. He had done all he could to avoid war. 
He came back to his countrymen, he pleaded with them; he knew 
what it meant ; he knew the desolation it meant for the people ; he 
pleaded with mothers that they might influence their husbands and 
children ; he besceched children to beg of their fathers and brothers 
to avoid war. He dreamed of an hour when the glory of the country 
could be maintained in peace; of a day when no hand should be raised 
against another, brother against brother, friend against friend. He 
told Lincoln, "I hear in Illinois there is serious disturbance ; that 
there in our state there is some doubt of loyalty to you. I do not 
know what I should do, whether I should remain here in the Senate 
or whether I should return to Illinois, where you need support." Lin- 
coln said. "]\'ly friend, do what you think is best." And Douglas, 
conscious that his health would but little permit him to take the long 
and diftlcult journey, notwithstanding, started for his state and the 
state of Lincoln, that there might be peace preserved, families 
brought together, conciliation, if possible, and the avoidance of dis- 
sension against the President of the United States. Douglas was 
never permitted to turn his face again to the capital. He pleaded 
with his people ; he pointed out to them the consequences, and had his 
advice been taken there would have been no war. Had the voice of 
the people been heard instead of that of the leaders, whose selfishness 
dragged their followers to death and their country to disaster, there 
would have been no such calamity as befell our common country. 
Douglas raised his voice in every place for liberty, and with Webster, 
for "liberty and union, one and inseparable." throughout every valley 
and on ever}' hill. 

He went to his bed and his last words were to his children, a 
message to be faithful to the constitution of their country and to up- 
hold the laws of the republic. Patriot in life! Patriot in death! 
Faithful and loyal in every hour! An American of Americans! " This 
was Stephen A. Douglas, of the United States. 

And the memory of Stephen A. Douglas will remind us that 
patriotism is again called for ; the last message of that noble citizen 

aa 



to his children, to maintain the laws and uphold the constitution, can 
but fill our hearts at this hour with love and admiration for a man 
who lived for his country, for a common flag, for a common republic, 
as every man should live for his country and for his flag, that the 
sentiment may be fully realized, — "A government of the people, for 
the people and by the people that shall not perish from the face of 
the earth." 

I thank you all and bid you good day. 

Governor Ormsbee: 

We have with us today the Governor of Vermont, and we want 
to have him let you see him and hear him as much or as little as he 
will. I introduce to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, Governor Fletcher. 

Governor Fletcher: 

Governor Ormsbee, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

When I was invited here by Governor Ormsbee it was with the 
distinct understanding that I was to look dignified and confine myself 
to that entirely, and so his calling upon me to speak makes me feel 
that I have been a failure in that respect. There is a time for all 
things, and after the magnificent address that we have listened to, it 
seems to me time to draw the veil. There are certain limitations, 
my friends, that surround the Governor of a state. Only a few 
days ago I was asked to deliver an address in the town of Walling- 
ford on Memorial Day. I responded and after it was over, an old 
soldier approached me upon the platform and said, "Sir, I would 
like to shake hands with you ; we have had six or seven Governors 
here upon like occasions, and you are the first one that knew when 
to stop." I feel in duty bound to say to you that neither Governor 
Ormsbee nor Governor Mead have spoken upon that platform in 
thirty years. 

Just one word: It seems to me that it is very fitting that the 
town of Brandon should be proud of this honor; it is very fitting 
that the state of Vermont should, as a state, take pride in the honor 
that is Brandon's. My friends, I think you will agree with me that 
Divine Providence long ago determined to make the United States 
the greatest country on the face of the earth, and we all know that 
Vermont has been of material assistance to Divine Providence to that 
end. 

as 



That being the case there is but one thing for you to do, — to 
keep on having celebrations of this kind; you have good cause for it; 
set an example to the state of Vermont; she cannot turn her back 
from the path she has taken, if she wants to, and she is with you 
in spirit. I thank you, my friends. (Applause.) 

Governor Ormsbee: 

I introduce to you the grandson of Stephen A. Douglas, who is 
here with us. Honorable Martin Francis Douglas, who has come 
all the way from his home to witness this celebration. 

Mr. Douglas: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Permit me to thank you in the name of his family, for your 
tender kindness in turning for a moment from the busy affairs of 
life to do honor to the memory of Stephen A. Douglas. 

Permit me to thank, in the name of patriotic citizens generally, 
the generous donor of this magnificent monument. It is just and 
proper to applaud the exploits of men of action; but the man who 
rears a monument to perpetuate the record of a heroic event or erects 
a statue to inspire the coming generations of men with the patriotism, 
the courage, the self-sacrifice of those who have gone before, is 
scarcely less to be commended. Men may perform deeds, but only 
historians can preserve them. The pages of an ordinary history may 
be burned, or destroyed or forgotten; but the work of the historian 
who inscribes in bronze and marble is imperishable. Down the ages 
to the farthest stretches of time his work will be a continual reminder 
of the glory of the past, and a constant incentive and inspiration 
to virtue in the present. 

Mr. Chairman, Stephen A. Douglas loved Vermont and Brandon 
with all the ardent affection of a dutiful son. And if the dead can 
see from their far away abode, and are aware of our earthly thoughts 
and actions, this proof of the citizens of his native town that he did 
not live in vain, must thrill his heart with tenderness and strengthen 
his deep-seated devotion to his native state and people. For it was 
here that his life began. It was here that his early childhood imbibed 
those heroic traditions and exalted principles that have distinguished 
this state since the beginning of her history, and are the common 
inheritance of all her sons. It was here that his mind received its 

24 




EX-GOV. E. J. ORMSBEE. 



bent, which later manhood developed and strengthened, but did not 
change. And so his descendants love to think that, although driven 
afar by the unalterable chance and circumstance of life, his character 
still retained the impress of his birth, it still retained the immovable 
quality of the granite of his native hills amid all the shifting policies 
and political expedients of those stormy days. 

I only regret that, dying amid the clouds of civil war and fraternal 
bloodshed, and broken-hearted over the imminent destruction of the 
Union he loved so dearly, and for which he sacrificed so much, he 
could not have seen the sunshine and peace of today; that he could 
not have seen his descendants from the South join in grateful and 
brotherly affection with his native townsmen of the North in a common 
appreciation of his services to the Union of the states. 

Governor Ormsbee: 

You all know that the beautiful, appropriate and costly monu- 
ment we have today unveiled is the gift of Albert G. Farr, of Chicago 
and Brandon. I fear that but for his liberality and kindly, noble 
spirit, that we should never have had this celebration, and now I want 
to ask you to give three cheers for Albert G. Farr. 

(Three cheers given.) 

Mr. Farr is not able to be here on account of illness, which we 
very greatly regret. 

A NATIONAL EVENT. 

The celebration was an event of national importance. The 
Associated Press was represented, and accounts were sent by wire to 
their members all over the country, and published the next morning, 
the Boston papers devoting much space to it. The cinematograph 
man was there with his camera, and on thousands of stages through- 
out the country the exercises have been repeated to tens of thousands 
of people in the form of motion pictures. Some of the leading 
architectural and monumental trade journals published engravings of 
the monument, with very favorable comments. Leslie's Illustrated 
Weekly had an illustration of the monument and cottage, with a brief 
summary of the proceedings, containing the curiously erroneous state- 
ment that Douglas was "a United States Senator from Illinois during 
the civil war." 

25 



OTHER MEMORIAL EXERCISES 

were held on the birthday anniversary, April 23, at Douglas's tomb and 
monument in Chicago, and at the state Capitol of Illinois in Spring- 
field. The former were under the auspices of the Chicago Historical 
Society, and the speakers and attendants were largely made up of 
those who had known Douglas in his lifetime or been present at his 
funeral. Some had heard some of the debates of 1858. There were 
also further exercises in the rooms of the Historical Society in the 
evening, at which IMartin F. Douglas read an address prepared by his 
father, Robert M. Douglas. 

At Springfield the exercises were held in the hall of the House 
of Representatives, before the members of the General Assembly and 
visitors. Gov. Dunne presided, and the speakers included Senators 
James Hamilton Lewis and Lawrence Y. Sherman, of Illinois, Senator 
James E. Reed, of IMissouri, former Vice-President Adlai E. Steven- 
son, and Robert D. Douglas, another grandson of Stephen A. Douglas. 

In the National House of Representatives at Washington, April 
23, 1913, Hon. William E. Williams of Illinois delivered an address 
on the life and character of Stephen A. Douglas. 

LETTERS. 

Among the many letters received by the committee and others 
in connection with the centenary celebration at Brandon, the follow- 
ing are of special interest and have therefore been deemed worthy of 
publication. 

from robert m. douglas. 

June 25th, 1913. 

Mr. F. H. Farrington, 
Brandon, Vt. 
Dear Mr. Farrington : — 

You cannot imagine the pleasure it would give me to be with you 
on "Douglas Day," and extend in heartfelt words the thanks I feel 
to those who have done so much to commemorate my father's memor}\ 
But my health confines me to the coldness of written words. 

There is something peculiarly tender in a native town calling back 
the memory of her son who has so long been absent, but whom she has 

26 



never forgotten, and who never forgot her. He trod the paths of fame 
in a distant State, and while she rarely approved his political views, 
she gave him credit for that manhood, loyalty and truth belonging to 
the blood he bore, and the pure mountain air that first gave him his 
infant breath. And now one hundred years after she gave him birth, 
and fifty-two years after the State of Illinois laid him in an honored 
tomb, she calls back the spirit of her unforgotten son, and places a 
monument to mark her claim to him for all coming time. 

This beautiful monument is the gift of Mr. Albert George Farr, 
who like Stephen A. Douglas, was born in Brandon and lives in Chi- 
cago. Is this the only resemblance? Do we not see in both the same 
inherent qualities of manhood which command success? In the fu- 
ture years when Brandon points to this monument, and recalls the 
name of the man whose memory it commemorates, she may well re- 
call with pride the name of the man who placed it there. Mr. Farr 
may rest assured of the lasting appreciation of his generous gift by 
all who bear the Douglas blood. 

One of the peculiar pleasures I would have had in visiting Bran- 
don would have been meeting Miss Lucy W. Smith, whom I have long 
known, not personally, but through her uniform courtesies. 

Some years ago she sent me a beautiful set of photographs show- 
ing how she had added to, and preserved as far as possible the out- 
lines of the old Douglas days. This did much to keep alive the in- 
terest in my father's memory and local association. 

Her generous invitation to have been her guest would have been 
gratefully accepted could I have come. 

Now my dear Mr. Farrington, I have much to thank you for. 
Your lofty conception of the meaning of this event, and your earnest 
and intelligent effort to give it shape and direction. Your persistent 
work has met the fullest success. 

As I and my descendants are the only living descendants of 
Stephen A. Douglas, I felt that our family should be represented. 
Therefore, my youngest son and law partner, Martin F. Douglas, will 
represent us. 

With best wishes and kindest regards, I remain, 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert M. Douglas. 

S7 



from ex-president taft. 

New Haven, Conn., May 17, 1913. 
I have your kind note of May 15th with reference to the proposed 
memorial of Stephen A. Douglas. I greatly regret that my engage- 
ments are such as to make it absolutely impossible for me to be pres- 
ent and take part in the memorial exercises, the appropriateness of 
which is manifest. 

Thanking you for the compliment of the invitation, believe me, 

Sincerely yours, 

Wm. H. Taft. 



FROM EX-VICE-PRESIDENT STEVENSON. 

(Mr. Stevenson's original letter having been mislaid, this is his 
response to a request for a copy of it). 

Bloomington, III., Oct. 29, 1913. 

Your letter of Oct. 27 at hand. I regret that I have no copy of 
the letter I wrote Gov. Ormsbee some months ago. I send by this mail 
copy of address I delivered in 1908 before the State Historical So- 
ciety touching the life and public services of Senator Douglas. If 
there is anything in it of interest to you it can be used as you think 
best. 

In my early manhood I knew Senator Douglas well. I heard him 
in the great Lincoln debates, and upon many other occasions. My 
first political speech was in advocacy of his election to the presidency. 
I was present at the laying of the corner stone of the "Douglas Monu- 
ment" in Chicago. 

I recall him distinctly. He was one of the manliest of men, and a 
statesman worthy of mention with the greatest in our history. 

Yours very truly, 

Adlai E. Stevenson. 



FROM speaker CLARK. 

The Speaker's Room, House of Representatives. 

Washington, D. C, November 15, 1913. 
I have always regarded Stephen A. Douglas as one of the greatest 
men of his generation, in fact, one of the greatest of all our states- 
men. 



I believe he was one of the most skillful debaters this country 
ever had in it. It was a great misfortune for the country, and 
especially for the Democratic party, that he died so young. 

The people of Vermont do well to build a monument to his 
memory. 

Yours truly. 

Champ Clark. 



from ex-speaker cannon. 

Danville, Ills., May 30, 1913. 
I have your letter 24th inst., covering invitation for Douglas me- 
morial address in June or July. I very much regret that my engage- 
ments are such that I cannot accept. 

I am fairly well acquainted with the career of Stephen A. Doug- 
las. He was a great man — a great statesman, and in several speeches 
he made shortly before his decease he did invaluable service in the 
great contest for the preservation of the Union. I am satisfied that 
southern and central Illinois, southern and central Indiana and south- 
ern Ohio except for these speeches would have been practically 
in the same condition during the war as were Missouri and Kentucky. 

Very truly yours, 

J. G. Cannon, 



from robert t. lincoln. 

Augusta, Ga., March 6th, 1913. 

Your letter reached me here. The plan to celebrate the cen- 
tennial anniversary of the birth of Senator Douglas in Brandon and 
to mark his birth place there is one which should appeal to all who 
recall his most distinguished career, and above all the very great serv- 
ices that he as a popular leader rendered in his last days to the saving 
of our government. 

I feel highly honored by your invitation to make an address upon 
the occasion, and much regret that it is not possible for me to do so. 
The condition of my health compelled me two years ago to retire from 



active life and to refrain also from accepting invitations like yours or 
even attending an assemblage such as you propose. 

With much regret and with every wish for the success of your 
plans, I am, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Robert T. Lincoln. 



from henry watterson. 

Fort Myers, Florida, January 31st, 1913. 

Your letter of the 24th of January reaches me here. I am highly 
honored by the invitation it embodies. I doubt whether any living 
man, except his surviving son, Judge Robert Douglas of North Caro- 
lina, knew Stephen A. Douglas as well as I did — certainly no one who 
sympathized more wholly with his personality and opinions. Hence, 
I should rejoice beyond measure if it were possible for me to deliver 
the address. Unfortunately, it is wholly impossible and most re- 
luctantly I am obliged to decline what would be altogether a labor 
of love. 

It has always been a pleasure for me to visit the Green Mountain 
section. I had one of my sons at Dartmouth College, and the region 
about Hanover is most familiar to me and my family. 

Let me thank you for the very kind terms of your letter and sub- 
scribe myself, 

Sincerely, 

Henry Watterson. 



from ex-gov. sulzer. 
State of New York, Executive Chamber. 

Albany, June 25, 1913. 

It certainly was very good of you to invite me to the Douglas 
Centennial Anniversary to be held in Brandon, Vermont, on the 27th 
inst. 

Nothing would gratify me more than to be able to accept and be 
with you on this interesting occasion. However, it will be absolutely 

30 



impossible on account of pressing official duties which detain me in Al- 
bany. 

It is fitting that the anniversary of the hundredth birthday of 
Stephen A. Douglas be celebrated in his birthplace, and the occasion 
made a memorable one by the dedication of a suitable monument. 

My father knew Douglas quite well, and admired him much. He 
was a great American and a true patriot. 

With best wishes, and hoping the celebration will be a great suc- 
cess in every way, believe me. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Wm. Sulzer. 



from senator page. 

Washington, D. C, June 23, 1913. 
To The Committee of Arrangements, 

Centennial Anniversary Exercises in Memory of 
Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, Brandon, Vermont. 
Gentlemen : — 

Have received your invitation to be present at the ceremony in 
connection with the dedication of the monument erected to the memory 
of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas on the 27th instant, and regret exceed- 
ingly that I cannot be with you at that time and participate in what 
I am sure will be a most enjoyable occasion. 

During the earlier years of my political life, when, as a boy, I 
seized upon and read with avidity everything pertaining to the political 
contest which resulted in the election of James Buchanan in '56 and 
the defeat of Douglas and the election of Lincoln in '60, I was a great 
admirer of Stephen A. Douglas, and remember to have spent a day 
in driving to Montpelier to hear the "Little Giant" make a political 
speech. 

I had never heard anything comparable to the force and eloquence 
of Douglas at that time, and I am not certain that I might not add 
that never in my life have I heard anything that I could rank as su- 
perior to Douglas' memorable speech at Montpelier in the summer of 
1860. I think it was during that speech that he uttered the memorable 
and never-to-be-forgotten sentiment: "Vermont is a good state in 

31 



which to be born and a good state from which to emigrate." I think 
the sentiment was not pleasantly received by the Vermonters who 
gathered at their capital to listen to the words of wisdom which fell 
from the lips of the "Little Giant," but despite this fact Ver- 
mont's great pride in this her distinguished son did not abate, and 
Vermont has always been exceedingly proud of the fact that she gave 
to the country one of the strongest men in public life during the ten 
years which preceded the Civil War. 

Sometimes it seems to me that the mental giants of that decade 
— notably Webster, Clay and Douglas — have never been matched — 
certainly not surpassed — in any decade of our Nation's history, and 
Brandon has every right to bedeck herself in her gayest colors on Fri- 
day next while she honors the memory of one of the most brilliant 
statesmen which this country has ever produced. 

Again regretting my inability to be with you on this occasion, I 
am, 

Respectfully yours, 

Carroll S. Page. 



(The following telegram from Senator Dillingham was received 
while the exercises were in progress.) 

Washington, D. C, June 27, 1913. 
I am just now in receipt of a note from the President expressing his 
regrets that it was not possible for him to get away in time to attend 
the Douglas anniversary at Brandon, planned for today, and saying 
it would have been most agreeable for him to have been there had 
it been possible. 

W. P. Dillingham, U. S. S. 

DESCRIPTION OF MONUMENT. 

(by the architects.) 

On the cloister wall leading from the tower to the Auditorium 
at the University of Chicago is a bronze tablet bearing a bas relief 
portrait of Stephen A. Douglas. This tablet was a gift to the 
University by one of its classes. On this tablet is the following 
inscription : 

32 




Q 
O 



"In honor of Stephen A. Douglas who in 1855 
generously contributed to the founding of the first 
University established in Chicago. This tablet is 
erected in June, 1901, by the Decennial Class of the 
University of Chicago." 

The sculptor for this tablet was the well known American artist, 
Mr. Lorado Taft. 

It was believed suitable by the admirers of Mr. Douglas to use 
this tablet to mark the birthplace of Stephen A. Douglas in Brandon, 
Vt., after the permission of the authorities of the University of 
Chicago and of Mr. Taft had been obtained. 

Mr. Albert G. Farr, a native of Brandon and member of the 
Douglas Monument Committee, directed Messrs. Sherley, Rutan & 
Coolidge, well known architects of Boston and Chicago, to prepare 
a design for a monument with this portrait of Mr. Douglas and the 
following inscription: 

"Stephen A. Douglas, teacher, lawyer, orator, 
statesman, United States Senator from Illinois 1847 
to 1861, Democratic candidate for President of the 
United States against Abraham Lincoln. Loyal 
supporter of Lincoln and the Union in the early 
days of the War of the Rebellion. Born at Brandon, 
April 23, 1813, in the cottage west of this site. Died 
in Chicago, June 3, 1861." 

On the reverse side of the monument, it seemed well to place a 
second inscription, as the monument will be seen from both sides : 

"This monument set up by citizens of Brandon, 
Vt., April 23, 1913, in commemoration of the 100th 
anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas 
who was born just west of this monument. 

33 



"The bas relief on the other side is a replica 
of the one at the University of Chicago by Lorado 
Taft. Under the original is an inscription referring 
to the generous contribution by Mr. Douglas toward 
the foundation in 1855 of the first University estab- 
lished in Chicago, which is now the University of 
Chicago." 



The design for the monument is based on pure Grecian forms 
and is carried out in white Vermont marble quarried near Brandon. 

The location chosen for the monument was the green in front 
of the cottage in which Mr. Douglas was born, the side bearing the 
portrait facing the road which, by the way, is the main highway, 
which runs from Boston to Montreal. 

The reverse side of the monument is towards the cottage and 
the inscription can be read by all passers-by on that side. 



ALBERT G. FARR, 

the donor of the monument, like Douglas, was born in Brandon, 
removed to Illinois, and there achieved marked success as a result 
solely of his own ability, determination and perseverance. Like 
Douglas, too, he began his career as a school teacher, then practiced 
law, made his residence in Chicago, and (here the parallel ending) 
finally became a prominent banker. He is chairman of the executive 
committee of the Harris Trust & Savings Bank of Chicago, a director 
of N. W. Harris & Co. of Boston, and of Harris, Forbes & Co. of 
New York. Mr. Farr's public spirit and generous help to worthy 
enterprises and institutions in his native town (the Brandon Free 
Public Library may be particularly mentioned) is well known and 
highly appreciated by the townspeople. 



34 





ALBERT G. FARR. 



Since the above was written, Mr. Farr, who had not been well 
for some time, succumbed to pneumonia and died at Chicago, 
December 23, 1913, at the age of 63, thus completing the parallel 
with the life and death of Stephen A. Douglas. Mr. Farr's abilities 
as a financier were of a high order, and won him wealth and a reputa- 
tion in the financial world, but to Vermonters he is best known and 
remembered for his quiet benevolence in many directions, and for his 
liberal aid to many public enterprises in his native town and state. 
He had a fine summer home in Brandon, and his beautiful garden 
and grounds, as well as his property on Mt. Pleasant, near the village, 
were always open to the public. All who enjoyed his friendship or 
acquaintance mourn his loss. 



THE BIRTHPLACE. 

The cottage in which Douglas was born was acquired some 
years ago by Miss Lucy W. Smith, a lady of taste and culture, who, 
except for the addition of a porch on one side, has maintained the 
exterior in its original condition. The interior has been transformed 
into a charming modern home, containing many rare pieces of antique 
furniture, and pictures and other mementos of the great man who 
there first saw the light. It is fortunate that the historic structure 
has fallen into such appreciative hands. 

DEATH OF DOUGLAS'S FATHER. 

Dr. Stephen A. Douglas, Sr., was a practicing physician, and 
died suddenly when the infant Stephen was but a little more than 
two months old. The circumstances of his death are narrated as 
follows by Horatio L. Wait, of Chicago, who served in the Navy 
during the civil war, and whose wife was a granddaughter of John 
Conant of Brandon, and appear to be authentic. We quote from a 
letter dated June 14, 1911 : 

35 



Soon after Stephen A. Douglas was born, early in the morning, 
his father was sitting in the living room before an open fire holding 
the infant in his arms. John Conant, the neighbor and friend, came 
in, and just as he opened the door into the room the father died sud- 
denly of apoplexy, and the infant rolled into the fire. John Conant 
literally rescued the child from the fire. Naturally thereafter he 
took special interest in him. When he started in the cabinet making 
business. Conant gave him orders for tables, bureaus and book cases 
for all his daughters. 

I heard Lincoln and Douglas speak in Chicago, and was intro- 
duced to Douglas and his then wife Adele, was greatly impressed by 
the graciousness of both, and I have no doubt that her beauty and 
tact contributed materially to his public success. 

It is therefore not surprising that I felt much interested when 
I found myself posted as a sentry at the head of his coffin when lying 
in state, and stood at attention, present arms, when his remains were 
lowered in mother earth, remembering that a family ancestor had 
plucked as a brand from the burning the infant destined to become 
such a power for good during his eventful life. 



THE ANCESTRAL GRAVES, 

In the old burying ground on Center Street, Brandon village, rest 
the remains of Douglas's father, and paternal grandfather and grand- 
mother. The graves are marked by quaint, old-fashioned tomb- 
stones, adorned with sculptured urns and weeping willows. The in- 
scriptions are as follows : 



Doct. 

Stephen A. Douglass 

died July 1st 

1813 

In the 32d year 

of his age. 



Guardian Angels hover round, 
And watch this virtuous sleeping clay, 
Till the last trump of joyful sound 
Proclaim the triumph of the Day. 

36 



Sacred to the 

memory of 

Benajah Douglass Esq 

who died October 2 

1829 

in the 69 year of 

his age. 

The righteous hath hope in his death. 



Mrs. 

Martha, 

Consort of 

Benajah 

Douglass Esq. 

died April 1st 

1818, in the 56 year 

of her age. 

Virtue lives beyond the grave. 



It will be noted that in the above inscriptions, the surname is 
spelled "Douglass," not "Douglas," as Stephen A. spelled it. 



DOUGLAS AT MIDDLEBURY IN 1831. 

It is not generally known that Douglas received the honorary 
degree of LL. D. from Middlebury College at the Commencement of 
1851, and we have not seen the fact recorded in any of his biographies. 
He was present and spoke at the college, and also in response to a 
serenade at his hotel. He also visited Brandon before returning to 
Illinois. The most detailed account of the doings at Middlebury that 
we have found appeared in the Brandon Post for Sept. 4, 1851, which 

37 



we reprint below. The degree was conferred on Commencement day, 

which was August 20, 1851. 

The speech of Mr. Douglas related to the character and prospects 
of the College, the character of the State and its inhabitants, and the 
responsibilities which rested upon the people of this country as the 
nursery of educated men for the West. His remarks throughout 
were forcible, chaste and eloquent, and were received by the audience 
with great tokens of approbation and pleasure. Very few men of 
Senator Douglas's age and opportunities for early culture could have 
risen before that audience, without preparation, and made a speech 
so replete with excellent thoughts, so elegant in language, so polished 
in delivery, and so full of all the graces of oratory, as the one he did. 
He closed in a manner that showed the largeness of his heart and the 
sincerity of the sentiments he had uttered. He said — "But it is time, 
Mr. President, to stop talking and begin to act, — to show the sin- 
cerity of our words in our deeds. Bring out the subscription." And 
thereupon the subscription Book was produced and the Honorable 
gentleman, in presence of the audience, put down his name for five 
hundred dollars, and paid the first installment of one hundred dollars 

to the President The young Senator from Illinois won 

"golden opinions" for himself from men of all classes and parties, 
and his presence at Commencement added much to the interest of the 
occasion, and was a source of gratification to all who attended, as it 
was doubtless to himself. 

From another article in the same paper we quote as follows : 

Mr. Douglas and lady arrived at Middlebury on the 18th ult., 
and remained through Commencement. Both himself and lady, an 
accomplished and agreeable woman, were cordially welcomed by the 
inhabitants of that town. On the evening after his arrival quite a 
large number of the citizens gave him a hearty welcome at the Ver- 
mont Hotel, accompanied by a serenade from the Lowell Brass Band, 
which discoursed most excellent music to the listeners, and being 
called out, he promptly responded to the call, and made a most beauti- 
ful speech, (bating a slight spice of Hunkerism which the Whigs 
cheered vociferously, and which, we doubt not, he regretted having 
indulged in) referring in a most felicitous manner to his former 
residence and occupation in Middlebury, to his affection for his native 
State, to his pride in her characters, to the beauty and grandeur of 
her scenery, the richness and variety of her products, the irrepressible 
enterprise of her people as evinced in her rail-ways, and the great 
influence which through her sons she had exerted, and would here- 
after exert, upon the institutions and destinies of the new States and 
Territories of the republic. His remarks, with the above exception, 
were all in good taste, well conceived and delivered in an easy and 
graceful style of elocution. He went from Middlebury to Brandon, 
where he stopped to visit friends and old acquaintances, and where 

38 



he met with an equally warm and cordial reception. Mr. Douglas 
is now thirty-eight years of age, of small stature, with a large and 
intellectual head, a frank, manly and pleasing countenance, and most 
courteous, unaffected and agreeable manners. He is a man of whom 
Vermont may very well feel proud. 

We extract the following from the account of the Middlebury 

Register of August 27, 1851 : 

To Judge Douglas's naturally fine appearance, winning manners, 
and graceful and dignified oratory, was added the special eclat of a 
prospective Presidential nomination, highly probable next year, and, 
if not so soon, almost certain to fall upon him at some future time. 

DOUGLAS'S CELEBRATED LEFT-HANDED COMPLIMENT 

TO VERMONT. 

In his remarks at Middlebury College, on the occasion above 

referred to, Senator Douglas made the oft-quoted statement about the 

advantages of Vermont as a natal state. His own account of what 

he said, in a speech in Illinois seven years afterward, is as follows : 

I was born away down in Yankee land ; I was born in a valley 
in Vermont, with the high mountains around me. I love the old 
green mountains and valleys of Vermont, where I was born, and 
where I played in my childhood. I went up to visit them seven or 
eight years ago, for the first time in twenty-odd years. When I got 
there, they treated me very kindly. They invited me to the Com- 
mencement of their College, placed me on the seats with their dis- 
tinguished guests, and conferred upon me the degree of LL. D. in 
Latin, the same as they did on Old Hickory at Cambridge many years 
ago, and I give you my word and honor I understood just as much 
of the Latin as he did. When they got through conferring the honor- 
ary degree, they called upon me for a speech ; and I got up with my 
heart full and swelling with gratitude for their kindness, and I said 
to them: "My friends, Vermont is the most glorious spot on the 
face of this globe for a man to be born in, provided he emigrates 
when he is very young." 

It has always seemed to the writer as passing strange that Douglas 
should have expressed himself in just that language before such an 
audience and on such an occasion, in the state to which he was re- 
ferring. It seemed too much like a lack of that tact, that gracious- 
ness, that felicity of thought and language which usually distinguished 
him. Perhaps, after the lapse of seven years, his memory was not 
quite clear as to the exact language used, and possibly he wanted to 
put it in a way to please his then audience. We are fortunate in 

39 



being able to present to our readers the version of a member of the 
audience who Hstened to Douglas's Commencement speech in 1851, 
and who clearly recalls the remark in question. We refer to Mr. 
E. G. Hunt, of New Haven, Vt., a graduate of Middlebury College 
in the class of 1857. Mr. Hunt writes us under date of November 11, 
1913, as follows: 

I was present and remember well Douglas's remark about Ver- 
mont being a good state to emigrate from, &c. Sometime last spring 
I saw in the Burlington Free Press an interpretation of that remark, 
I think from the pen of Gov. Barstow, that was new to me. It was 
an attempt to explain it in a manner somewhat far-fetched, as a 
compliment to the state. That is, that he meant to say that it was an 
honor to hail from the state of Vermont, Where that explanation 
originated, whether from Mr. Douglas himself or from some other 
source, I have no idea. It had never occurred to me that it could 
have been in the speaker's mind at the time he uttered the words, 
and I am sure it was not so understood by the audience. There 
would have been nothing in such a remark to create a sensation, 
and there was a decided sensation. 

You, in your letter, make Mr. Douglas say that "Vermont is a 
good state to be born in, provided you emigrate early." That last 
clause, "provided you emigrate early," I do not think was in the 
speech. I should say that his language was : "Vermont is a good 
state to be born in, a good state to be brought up in," and then, after 
a little pause, "and a good state to emigrate from." That "brought 
down" the house. 

We think that Mr. Hunt's version of this celebrated remark is a 
much more reasonable and satisfactory one than that of Senator 
Douglas himself, and it is probably about what he said. 

DOUGLAS'S FATHER NOT A GRADUATE OF 
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE. 

Several of the biographies of Douglas state that his father was a 
graduate of Middlebury College, and Douglas himself makes the same 
statement in his autobiography. This appears to be an error. Presi- 
dent John M. Thomas, of the College, writes us : 

Several biographical sketches of Judge Douglas state that his 
father was a graduate of Middlebury College. We would be very 
proud of that fact if it were a fact, but are unable to find in our 
records of graduates or former students the name of the father of 
Stephen A. Douglas. 

40 



HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 

S' TO HIS NATIVE TOWN!! 



This disUngaisbed gentleman, with his estimable lady are expect- 
ed (e f iiiit Uraiidoii, the Iomii ofbiM hirth, on 

Saturday, 28th rnst, arriving at 4 o'cW P. H. 

frhen be f«t§l be rrcehed b> u CoiuBiKter of CUixens, >Tl(lia 



MILITARY ESCORT, 

aa4 condocled <o the Braadon lloB»e, where raitahle 

HQOissis mm bi mpmim. - 

l*er order of the Comnittee. 

BRAmOil. JULY 25TH. 60. 



--^^-* ^ 



POSTER OF 1860. 



DOUGLAS AT BRANDON IN 1860. 

In the summer of 1860, soon after his nomination for the presi- 
dency, Douglas made a campaign tour of New England, and visited 
Vermont, speaking at several of the larger places, and arrived at 
Brandon on Saturday, July 28, where he remained over Sunday. 
The following account of his visit to Brandon is from the Rutland 
Herald of August 2, 1860. 

Some forty of our citizens, including the committee of reception 
from Brandon, accompanied Mr. Douglas to Brandon, where he was 
received as in Rutland, by the citizens of all parties, amounting in 
number to some 2000 persons, and greeting extended to him, such as 
Brandon knows how to bestow. The Brandon House and many 
private residences were decorated with flags and streamers, and 
everything wore a holiday appearance. The ''Allen Grays" were out 
and did escort duty, and the Brandon and Vergennes bands furnished 
music for the occasion. 

Upon the arrival of the cars at Brandon, a procession was formed, 
escorted by the Bands and Military, and headed by the carriages con- 
taining Mr. Douglas, the committee of reception and the invited 
guests, and followed by a large number of carriages containing the 
citizens generally. The procession moved through most of the prin- 
cipal streets until it came to the old homestead, or "birthplace" of 
their guest, when it halted, and an opportunity was given for those 
who chose to view at this time that interesting relic. A large con- 
course of people had gathered here in advance of the procession, and 
upon its arrival great enthusiasm was manifested by the crowd. Mr. 
Douglas, as well as his friends, viewed this relic of his boyhood 
days with an evident degree of interest. The building stands at the 
north end of the village, and is a small, brown, story and a half 
house, with a latticed porch, and bears evidence of the humble life 
of the former occupants, but there were associations connected with 
it, which at this time made it a matter of interest far beyond many 
of more attractive appearance. 

After this halt of the procession it then moved back to the Bran- 
don House, where accommodations had been provided for their guests, 
and the procession was broken up. A platform had been erected 
in front of the hotel, which was now occupied by the committee and 
their guests and a few invited friends. 

Mr. Douglas was welcomed to Brandon and her hospitalities by 
E. N. Briggs, Esq., and then introduced to her citizens. Mr. Douglas 
responded in a most touching and affecting reply, and we have to 
regret that we cannot give it entire to our readers. He acknowledged 
his gratitude for the attention paid him by the citizens of all parties, 
and confined his remarks to topics peculiar to, and suggestive of, the 

41 



occasion.* He spoke for about thirty minutes, and was listened to 
with profound attention, after which the formahty of the reception 
was broken up, and he mingled freely with the citizens. At eight 
o'clock in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Douglas held a levee in the parlors 
of the Brandon House, for the purpose of receiving their friends, 
and a large number of citizens paid their respects to them. 

Mr. Douglas left Brandon on the Monday morning train for 
Burlington and Montpelier. 



We cannot suffer this opportunity to pass without expressing 
our approval of the course pursued by a large number of the 
Republicans of Rutland County, and especially of Brandon and Rut- 
land, who participated in this reception. Being the dominant party 
of this State with well known principles, and a majority, which under 
no circumstances can be blotted out, we can well afford to be generous 
to our opponents, and especially so at this time, when one of their 
great chiefs, who was born among us in obscurity, but by his own 
exertions has raised himself to the eminent position he now occupies, 
returns with political objects professedly thrown aside, to pay a social 
visit to his own native County. We feel that in so doing we can 
honor the man without being understood as endorsing his principles, 
and we believe that this course of policy is the best to be pursued 
at all times and by all parties, having a tendency as it does of softening 
political asperities and making us more honorable politicians and 
better men. 

DANIEL ROBERTS' REMINISCENCIES. 

In Harper's Magazine for November, 1893, appeared some inter- 
esting reminiscencies of Douglas by Daniel Roberts, of Burlington, 
Vt. We reprint below the major part of them: 

It happened to me when a young man of 22 to 24 years of age, 
to reside in Morgan County, Illinois — for the most part at Jackson- 
ville, the county seat. This embraced the period from about April, 
1833, to August, 1835. Stephen A. Douglas, a boy originally from 
Brandon, Vt., had arrived in the county, and spent the winter of 
1833-4 in teaching school at Winchester, then in Morgan County, 
some 16 miles from Jacksonville. Early in 1834 he came to Jackson- 
ville, and was admitted to the county bar, though scarce 21 years 
of age, and fastened his professional sign on the outer wall of the 
old brick court house, in which he took an office, situate, as was then 

*Mr. J. B. Kelly, who is still living in Brandon, played in the Brandon 
Band on this occasion, and heard this speech. He says that the speaker 
referred to politics, among other things likening the Republican party to 
a squirrel on the limb of a tree, which has just been shot by a hunter, and 
is clinging to the limb for dear life during its few last moments, soon to fall 
and be seen no more. That squirrel has not only clung to the limb ever 
since, but has been running about in quite a lively fashion most of the 
time, though at the last presidential election it almost lost its grip. 

4a 



the fashion, in the center of the public square, in association with the 
market house. 

CHents were rare visitors at his oflfice, nor was he a close keeper 
of his office for either business or study ; but he was out among "the 
boys," assuming the part of politician from the start, a germinating 
and budding senator and president. The population of central and 
southern Illinois was largely an emigration from the States south 
of it — Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. — and of that class that made up the 
Jackson democracy of that day. Morgan County was Democratic, 
while the lawyers of Jacksonville were Henry Clay Whigs. Young 
Douglas took in the situation at a glance, and with a ready instinct 
doffed his eastern dress and manners, and assumed a suit of Ken- 
tucky jeans and an arm-in-arm intimacy, in street and saloon, with 
men of that uniform and of the Jackson stripe. Social and friendly 
in manner, ready of speech and in debate, with perfect confidence in 
himself, he soon became a favorite with the Jackson men, and was 
put forward as their champion in political meetings and conventions. 
I remember it was in 1834 that Benjamin Mills, of Galena, a graceful 
speaker, appeared in the court house at Jacksonville, and made a taking 
public address in advocacy of his own election to Congress as a 
Henry Clay Whig. William L. May, of Carrollton, was the Jackson 
candidate. At the close of this address, "Little Douglas," as he was 
called, was thrust, not unwillingly, to the platform, for he was on 
hand for a purpose. His attempted reply and counter-attack were 
so spirited as greatly to arouse the enthusiasm of his party friends, 
and to inspire a stout Kentuckian standing near me to cry out, "Hit 
him again, little fellow! Give him a pair of gafifs." It was a match 
of gamecocks with my Kentucky friend, and his heart went out for 
the little chap, the Bantam cock of the fight. 

It is said of Douglas in his biography, as given in Appleton's 
Encyclopedia, that "he was remarkably successful at the bar, as may 
be inferred from the fact that within a year of his admission, while 
not yet 22 years of age, he was elected by the Legislature attorney- 
general of the State." This cannot be a true inference, for at that 
time, as a matter of fact, Douglas had almost no practice at the bar 
and no reputation as a lawyer, his election as attorney-general to the 
contrary notwithstanding. That this mere boy should by any legal 
attainments or professional skill have been able to depose Colonel 
Hardin, a mature man and skilled lawyer and eloquent speaker, in- 
trenched as he was under the statute law of his appointment, and 
have put himself in Colonel Hardin's place of his own force, seems 
quite incredible. The result points more naturally to some influences 
and motives outside any professional or other special deservings of 
Douglas as the originating and efficient cause of this result. 

To the people of Morgan County of that day this cause and the 
mode of its working were well understood and notorious. They were 
of this sort: John Wyatt, a farmer, then residing in the southern 
part of the county, was State senator; his friendship Douglas had 

43 



been careful to cultivate. Wyatt was a fierce Jackson Democrat and 
a man of much rough force of character. He was fiercely and openly 
hostile, both politically and personally, to Colonel Hardin, and had 
determined upon his removal from the office of attorney-general ; but 
in order to effect this the law must be so changed as to legislate Hardin 
out of office and make the office elective by the Legislature. At the 
session of the Legislature then held at Vandalia, in the winter of 
1834-5, a strongly Democratic body. Senator Wyatt succeeded in 
securing the required change in the law, and thereupon sent for his 
young friend Douglas to come at once to Vandalia and present himself 
as candidate for the office, announcing: "If I can only beat John 
Hardin and beat him with little Douglas, it will be too good." On 
this invitation the young man started for Vandalia. 

I myself with a companion went there later by horseback ride, 
stopping over night on the way at a wayside inn, where we enjoyed 
the display, new to us, of a prairie fire, and the exhilarating fun of 
leaping our horses back and forth through the light flames. Arrived 
at Vandalia I there met young Douglas, who had in so short a time 
made himself acquainted and familiar with the members of the Legis- 
lature, and had become quite a pet with them, sitting on their knees 
even, and in every way making himself agreeable by assimilation. 

Well, the result of the legislative canvass was that Douglas was 
elected attorney-general, Hardin's seat having been legislated from 
under him. John Wyatt, Senator, had got his revenge, and was 
glorious and boastful. He had beaten John Hardin and with "little 
Douglas." 

I remember as though it were but yesterday when Douglas, on 
a bright Sunday morning, mounted on a three-year-old mare colt 
furnished him by his friend, Wyatt, set out from the court house 
square for Springfield to assume his duties in court as attorney- 
general. He was not a striking figure on horseback. His weight was 
about 130 pounds avoirdupois, and his short legs allowed his feet 
to reach scarcely below the saddle skirts. He had stored in his 
saddle-bags a book on criminal law which I had lent him ; it was 
his whole library. And this was the first stage of the political journey 
toward Washington and the White House of Douglas, the "Little 
Giant." In August, 1835, I came back to Vermont on a visit, which 
has lasted to this hour. 

CAMPAIGNING IN 1843. 

Hon. Orville H. Browning, of Illinois, who succeeded Douglas 

as Senator from that state, was pitted against him as a candidate for 

Representative to Congress in 1843. In his remarks in the Senate 

on the death of Douglas, he spoke as follows of that campaign : 

In the spring of 1843, the State having been redistricted for 
congressional representation, he and I, residents of the same village 



— the one a judge, the other a practitioner before him — were nominated 
by our respective parties as opposing candidates for Congress in the 
same district. 

In the forenoon of a bright summer day in June, the court was 
brought to a close for the term in the last county in the circuit, and 
he at once resigned the judgeship.* 

In the afternoon of the same day, by previous mutual arrange- 
ment, and at the urgent solicitation of both political parties, we ad- 
dressed a large assemblage of Whigs and Democrats, thus opening 
one of the most excited, arduous, and earnest political campaigns that 
was ever made in the State. 

The next day we passed into another county, and again addressed 
the people ; and from that time forward till the election, we travelled 
together, often in the same conveyance, and spoke together from the 
same stand on an average of two hours each per day, and that re- 
peated every day, as my memory now serves me, with the excep- 
tion only of the Sabbath. The district was one of the largest in the 
United States, both in population and territory, and the summer 
unusually warm ; and it is perhaps not to be wondered at that the 
health of both of us gave way under the constant and heavy draught 
thus made on our physical and intellectual energies ; mine a little 
before, and his on the day of the election. 

Perhaps at no time in our country's history did party spirit run 
higher or wax warmer than at this time it did in Illinois. Personal 
rancor was almost universal, and personal conflicts not unfrequent 
between opposing candidates. Impressed with a sense of how per- 
nicious the influence of such an example was upon the public mind ; 
how adverse to a calm and impartial hearing and fair estimate of dis- 
cussion of the questions which separated us, and vitally interested 
the country ; and how incompatible with the dignity which ought to 
characterize the deportment of gentlemen aspiring to high positions 
of trust and honor, we came to a mutual understanding, before entering 
upon the canvass, not to violate with each other the courtesies and 
proprieties of life ; and not to permit any ardor or excitement of debate 
to betray us into any coarse and unmanly personalities. And I am 
proud to say that the compact was well and faithfully kept on both 
sides. During the entire campaign not one unkind word or dis- 
courteous act passed between us ; and we closed the canvass with the 
friendly relations which had previously subsisted undisturbed, and 
maintained them, without interruption, to the day of his death. 

*While presiding on the bench at Knoxville, the news of his first 
nomination for Congress came. The news so stirred the people that he was 
obliged to adjourn court, and the whole assemblage, judge and jury, lawyers 
and spectators, paraded around the public square, singing: 

"The old black bull came down the meadow." 

—Stephen A. Douglas, by Clark E. Carr. 

45 



ADDRESS OF MR. COLLAMER, OF VERMONT, IN THE U. S. 
SENATE, JULY 9, 1861. 

Mr. President: Stephen A. Douglas was a native of Vermont, 
and she claims to utter a word on the occasion of this solemn an- 
nouncement of his deceas,. However much a majority of her people 
may have often, and perhaps generally, disagreed with his political 
positions and measures, yet they duly appreciate the strong points 
of his character, the elevated position he has occupied, and the 
extensive influence he has wielded in this nation, and cherish pride in 
him as one of their sons. That a poor orphan boy from the Green 
Mountains could peaceably accomplish all this, is to that people not 
merely a matter of wonder or admiration of his personal resolution 
and ability, but an inspiring and brilliant manifestation of the generous 
liberality of our free institutions, opening the avenues of enterprise to 
success and elevation to the effort and energy of all, however humble. 

Brilliant and commanding as have been the positions and parts 
which he has performed on the political theatre of this nation, it is 
strikingly observable in how short a time it was accomplished. His 
whole course in the national councils was confined to a period of less 
than twenty years. In that short period, laboring in the Democratic 
party, he succeeded in securing to himself the sympathy and affection 
of the great body of the masses of that long-dominant party, and 
held their hearts in his hand. How generous and cordial must have 
been the spirit of the man to secure to himself so extensive, so con- 
fiding, and devoted attachments ! 

The first great ingredient in the composition of his success was, 
that he was not merely with the masses of the people, but was of 
them. The people submit with cheerfulness to leadership and con- 
trol if it is of their own creation ; and Mr. Douglas was not great by 
adventitious circumstances beyond their control. This, his normal 
character, was never essentially modified by any sophistications of 
education, which with him was very limited ; and he fully appreciated 
through life, as an element of his strength, and often proudly alluded 
to, his early mechanic service as fixing his identity with the masses 
of the people. 

Another element of his success is found in his indomitable energy 
and perseverance. This is too universally understood to require re- 

46 



mark. It was said of old that the gods help those who help them- 
selves, and men generally concur in like conduct. 

It has been truly said that "much study makes a wise man, much 
writing a correct man, and much speaking a ready man." The last 
of these propositions is most true of controversial speaking; and of 
that Mr. Douglas was both an example and an illustration. Much has 
been said of his power of debate as a point in his superiority and an 
instrument of his elevation. As a public speaker, he was almost ex- 
clusively practiced as an advocate and champion of the Democratic 
party, whose principles and doctrines he never questioned. He thus 
became disciplined in occupying and defending positions rather than 
in selecting them. In this he became dexterous and adroit to an un- 
usual and almost wonderful degree in all the skill of forensic gladiator- 
ship. As the positions of his party were, with him, unquestionable and 
axiomatic truths, he regarded everything opposed to them as false and 
unfounded. With this habit of mind, it became to him almost im- 
possible ever to receive or appreciate, believe or present, the statements 
or arguments of his opponent in any other light but the one which 
would destroy their force or enable himself to answer them. His per- 
sistence was unrelenting, very seldom convinced of error, and never 
betraying a consciousness of being vanquished. 

In contributing to the repeal of the Missouri compromise — that 
prolific source of vast political complications and consequences — it 
was sanctified to him by his cherished principle that the people were 
to be left "perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- 
tions in their own way" ; and though too slow to believe the border- 
ruffian violence by which the people of Kansas were subjugated, yet, 
when violence and fraud culminated in that great national swindle, 
the Lecompton constitution, he met and exposed it with the frankness 
and decision of a just and high-minded patriot. 

Mr. Douglas supported the Democratic party as a national party. 
His attachments and sympathies were with the nation and its institu- 
tions which cherished him ; and his ambition or aspiration was to be 
President of the United States, not of only a part of it. His defeat 
was not by the body of his party, but by the conspiracy of men long 
leaders in that party, no less ambitious than himself, but enemies 
of the nation, its institutions and its flag. 

47 



He became what he was, mainly through his own exertions; and 
the fact that they enabled him to acquire the distinction he possessed 
was due to the liberal institutions of this government ; as to all which 
he was neither insensible nor ungrateful. When the southern traitors 
proceeded to the dismemberment of this government by open war, he, 
laying aside the party differences w^hich separated him from the 
Executive, promptly, and with frank, patriotic devotion, tendered to 
the Executive his services and influence to sustain the government in 
the hour of its peril. I say "its peril," as it has long since outgrown 
all apprehension of foreign invasion; and domestic convulsions and 
internal war is its last trial. Into this service he entered with his 
usual devotion, activity, and eloquence, until arrested by fatal disease. 

He has departed to his long home in the meridian of his man- 
hood, and at a juncture in which he might have been of more than or- 
dinary service to the country. Human judgment might say his death 
was untimely and premature. Human judgment is quite too feeble 
for such a subject ; but how can we, even in human judgment, regard 
his departure as premature whose last public act was the crowning 
glory of his earthly career? 

ADDRESS OF MR. WALTON, OF VERMONT, IN HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, JULY 9, 1861. 

Mr. Speaker: While many states are to-day assembled, through 
their representatives in the Senate and this House, as mourners at the 
loss of one who has achieved far more than ordinary honors in 
the public service, and a measure of popular admiration and attach- 
ment accorded to but few statesmen of his years in any age or na- 
tion, there is one state distinguished from all others — I will not say 
by the sincerity of her grief, when all alike are sincerely grieved, but 
I may truly say for the singularity of her grief. A mother weeps for 
her son. His fame was national ; Vermont remembers that hers is the 
parental share. His death, in the very crisis of a nation's fate, was a 
national calamity ; but Vermont remembers that her loss is much more 
than the common share. Her son is dead. She clad herself in 
mourning on the announcement of what was, to human judgment, an 
untimely death; and all her children murmured the accents of sor- 

48 



row. It is fit, then, to-day, for Vermont to join in these funeral 
honors ; and, by my colleagues, it has been deemed most fit that I, as 
the representative of the district in which the deceased senator was 
born, and the people among whom he was bred, should at least offer 
a memorial tribute, however humble it may be. 

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born in Brandon, Rutland county, 
Vermont, on the 23rd day of April, 1813. Then, more than now, that 
was a rural town ; and though the father was a physician of good 
culture and in high repute, by his early death his son was left to 
those privileges only which the poorest can command, and he spent 
more than one-third of his brief but eventful life attending the winter 
district school, and laboring steadily during the remainder of his 
time upon a farm and in a mechanic's shop. A single year of academ- 
ical studies, being the eighteenth year of his life, and the year in which 
he received his bent and fixed his future professional career, com- 
pleted the preparation given according to the then common usage of 
Vermont. It was no mean preparation ; for, allowing all that may be 
due to the peculiar qualities of the man — to his keen and powerful 
intellect, his unyielding will, and that audacity of bravery which dis- 
tinguished him in every conflict — it was in his case peculiarly true, 
that "the boy was father to the man" ; that the bent acquired in his 
youth, from the institutions and influences which surrounded him, 
marked him for life. 

The town in which he was born, like every other in Vermont, 
and indeed each of the many school districts in the town, was an in- 
dependent corporation for its appropriate purposes, with what, in 
strict propriety, may be called legislative powers, such as taxation, 
and the regulation of various matters of importance to the town and 
district ; and the legislature of each was not a representative body, 
but a pure democracy, in which all the citizens met on equal terms and 
with an equal right to free discussion and action. These are priv- 
ileges which touch the interests of all, and therefore demand intel- 
ligence, and put to practical and constant use the intellectual and moral 
qualities of the people. The demand stimulates the best supply to be 
attained, and by books and newspapers, by public discussions and fire- 
side consultations, that supply is had. The fruit is an independent, 
intelligent, and energetic community, thoughtful of public affairs and 

49 



familiar with public duties ; a community, of which every man may 
tender what he will to the common weal, and he will be sure to be 
weighed in a just balance and counted for what he is worth. From 
such a school — the same in kind as those from which Vermont 
sends her sons and daughters throughout the land — Stephen A. Doug- 
las went out a Democrat, as every native born and bred Vermonter 
is a Democrat. I say it in the strictest and purest sense of the word, 
not in a party sense, though in his case that was true ; and I have 
sometimes fancied that even then that chord was strung which in late 
years sounded the rallying cry of his party — "the freedom of the peo- 
ple to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." 

His career has been brilliant beyond all other examples in our 
political history. Swift and unbroken was his march from the ob- 
scurity of his old rural home to the post of championship in the Senate. 
Every step was triumphal ; and every triumph gave new confidence, 
courage, and strength, for a larger endeavor and a more brilliant vic- 
tory. Never but once, and at the last, did he fail, as if in him was to 
be the proof of the all but divine insight of the greatest poet of our 
race: "Checks and disasters 

Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd." 

No! not at the last. I recall the words. The last trial was 
indeed his greatest victory. It has been the boast of his friends that 
he was pre-eminently a party man; and he himself undoubtedly had 
the fullest faith in both the invincibility and virtue of the party of 
which he had become the recognized head. More than others, then, 
he was the idol for party homage, and more than others the target to 
receive the shafts of party prejudice and malignity. If this be true, 
sir, his last conflict was with himself — his last victory the noblest for 
his fame. The patriot conquered the partisan. The last cry from his 
trumpet tongue announced the supremacy of patriotism over party, 
and summoned the legions of his loyal friends to the rescue of the 
country ; and his dying message to his children enjoined perpetual 
fidelity to the Constitution and the Union. We mourn, then, not alone 
that a great man has fallen — we bring not here alone the cheap offer- 
ings of personal or party grief — we marshal not ourselves as friends 
and foes, bound in common decency to suspend the clash of conflict 



59 



for the burial of the dead ; but, bearing the heavy burden of a com- 
mon woe, we mingle our tears over a patriot's grave. 

Mr. Speaker, it is for others, who have been personal friends of 
the deceased, to utter the eulogies and sorrows of friendship ; for 
others, who have been his associates in public life, to do justice to 
his public services ; but for Vermont, let me say, that today there has 
been, and there can be, no measure of deserved praise that shall not 
touch her pride, and no wail of unfeigned sorrow that shall not reach 
her heart. 



LETTER FROM JUDGE ROBERT M. DOUGLAS. 

30 Oct.. 1913. 
Hon. F. H. Fakrington, 

Brandon, Vt. 
My Dear Mr. Farrington: 

I deeply appreciate your kindness in asking me to recall one or 
two incidents of my father's life tending to show its leading charac- 
teristics. 

In my published letter to Mr. Bowman on the occasion of the 
semi-centennial celebration of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates at Alton, 
I recalled the fact that my father was personally opposed to slavery, 
and showed his sincerity by refusing a valuable gift of slave property 
tendered him by my grandfather, Robert Martin, a wealthy planter 
of North Carolina ; and that in consequence of this refusal, Colonel 
Martin provided in his will that in the event of the death of his 
daughter without children, the slaves refused by Judge Douglas should 
be sent to Liberia at the expense of his estate. Judge Douglas could 
have accepted the slaves, sold them, and invested their proceeds in 
real estate in Chicago ; but this was not his idea of emancipation. He 
neither wanted a slave nor the proceeds of a slave; and he did not 
think it was any worse to ozvn a slave than to sell one. 

Stephen A. Douglas was elected by the General Assembly an 
Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois on February 15, 
1841, being then twenty-seven years of age. At the ensuing July 
term Mr. Lincoln brought up on appeal his celebrated case of David 
Bailey, appellant vs. W. Cromwell et al., Executors of Nathan Crom- 
well, deceased, appellees. Mr. Lincoln appeared for Bailey, who was 

51 



resisting the collection of a note he had given for the purchase of a 
negro girl. There was no sufficient evidence that the girl was a 
slave, and her fate practically depended upon the legal presumption 
as to color. The Supreme Court held with Mr. Lincoln that : 'Tt is 
a presumption of law that every person is free without regard to 
color." The opinion was written by the Chief Justice and concurred 
in by Judge Douglas, and indeed apparently by all the judges. It 
seems singular that Stephen A. Douglas sustained Abraham Lincoln 
in so important a principle of human freedom, and that S. T. Logan, 
for so many years Mr. Lincoln's law partner, should have appeared 
in that case against Mr. Lincoln, contending that a negro was legally 
presumed to be a slave without any other evidence than the color of 
his skin. This case was reported in 3 Scammon, page 71. Judge 
Douglas also concurred in the opinion of the court in Kinney vs. 
Cook, 3 Scammon, page 232. And yet my father was not an abolition- 
ist as then understood. Having taken a solemn oath to obey and 
support the Constitution of the United States, he did not feel that he 
had any right to interfere with slavery wherever it lawfully existed 
under the sanction of the Federal Constitution. He did not believe 
that the Declaration of Independence referred to the freedom of 
slaves, because Jefferson, who wrote it, was himself a slaveholder, 
and every delegate who signed it represented a slave holding State. 
While several States had sought to prevent any further importation 
of slaves, and one or two had enacted some legislation looking to 
future emancipation, yet the fact remains that at that time negroes 
to a greater or less extent were actually held in slavery in every 
State of the Union. It is true Jefferson looked forward to the ulti- 
mate freedom of the negro ; but he well knew that at that time forced 
emancipation would lead to civil war. None realized this more fully 
than my father, whose marriage to a Southern woman, and consequent 
visits to the South, brought him into personal contact with the slave 
holding class in their homes. For instance. Senator Reid of North 
Carolina, who served with my father for several years in the Senate, 
was his wife's first cousin and his personal friend, but his political 
opponent. My father had no misconception of the length and magni- 
tude of the coming war. He told a distinguished citizen of Illinois, 
General John M. Palmer: "This will be a great war. It will last 

53 




/2-2 -J 







j^ ^' 



X- 







^ ^^^^cj.^^—^ ^ ^A^-- ^^ 



/Z'c ^c-t^.,-^^ <^' 



•^/^- 






/ 







PATRIOTIC LETTER OP' SENATOR DOUGLAS, 
NOW FIRST PUBLISHED. 



for years. This continent will tremble under the tread of a million 
armed men." In his speech at Springfield five weeks before his death, 
he declared that : "The shortest way to peace is the most stupenduous 
and unanimous preparation for war." He dreaded civil war, but 
heart and brain re-echoed the slogan of his old hero, Andrew Jack- 
son, "Our Federal Union ; it must be preserved." 

A quotation from a letter to me from the late Melville W. Fuller, 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, may here 
be appropriate. The Chief Justice says: 'T knew your lamented 
father very well. Popular as he was, it has nevertheless seemed to me 
that the extraordinary abilities he possessed have never been fully 
appreciated. The slavery question compelled his attention, and so the 
comprehensive grasp of his mind did not get full opportunity for 
expression in other directions. But as time goes on I think the im- 
pression of his real greatness deepens." 

Again expressing my grateful appreciation of your generous re- 
membrance, I remain. 

Most sincerely yours, 

Robert M. Douglas. 

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF SENATOR DOUGLAS. 

We are fortunate in having secured for publication the following 
hitherto unpublished interesting and important letters of Stephen 
A. Douglas. The first is an artful electioneering appeal in the guise 
of a friendly letter, delicately suggesting to his friend that his support 
of his candidacy for the U. S. Senate would be acceptable. The 
second is a letter to his confidential friend and representative, C. H. 
Lanphier, editor of the State Register at Springfield, 111., on the 
subject of some campaign slanders which had been circulated, charg- 
ing Douglas with being a slave holder and misrepresenting his slavery 
views. He encloses a suggested editorial in refutation of these 
charges. The third letter is dated from New York soon after his 
nomination for the presidency, and shows that at that time he had 
strong hopes of his election. All of these letters are interesting — 
as are all such letters of distinguished characters — in exhibiting his 
forms of expression and style of composition in intimate personal 
letters. 

68 



to hon. hall sims. 

Charleston, (III.) Nov. 14, 1846. 
My Dear Sir : 

I arrived here today on a visit to the Wabash Counties, yours 
included among the number; but have received such information as 
will compel me to proceed south immediately and will deprive me of 
the pleasure of seeing you. You are aware that my name will be 
presented to the Legislature this winter as a candidate for the U. S. 
Senate. My present object is not to electioneer with you; for our 
long acquaintance and your former friendship would seem to render 
this unnecessary. Yet I would have been glad to have seen you 
at your own house, & have spent a pleasant evening in talking over 
old times. I am not aware that I will have any opposition. There 
have been rumors that Col. McClernand will be a candidate, but I 
have just learned that he will not run. As he has declined I know of 
no candidate on the track but myself. I have heard some rumors 
that a secret arrangement has been entered into by a few persons to 
bring out a candidate after I leave for Washington ; but I discredit 
such reports, for the unfairness of the thing would certainly defeat 
the success of the scheme. Of course I would dislike to be beaten 
by such an arrangement, as it would greatly injure my standing in 
the House and before the country. As I must be absent, I must rely 
.solely on the activity and vigilance of my friends. I bear you in 
grateful remembrance for your friendship for me on former occasions, 
and expect now to be placed under additional obligations to you. 
I shall be happy to hear from you often, and to render you any service 
in my power at Washington. 

Your friend, 
Hon. Hall Sims. S. A. Douglas. 

, TO c. h. lanphier. 

(Confidential) 

Washington, August 3d, 1850. 
Dear Sir: 

I herewith send you a manuscript in strict confidence. If you 
deem it wise & prudent you can modify it to suit you «& copy it & 

54 



publish it editorially. I leave it entirely to your discretion, but to be 
shown to no one else. I desire you to destroy this copy in my hand- 
writing. You have doubtless seen the article in the Quincy Whig 
to which I refer. It will undoubtedly be published in all whig and 
abolition papers in the state. You can rely implicitly upon the law 
of the case as stated in the article I send, can find the laws of 
Mississippi to the same effect (in) the office of Secy of State. I 
believe the article was got up in Springfield or by Baker here & sent 
to Bledsoe who formerly edited the Journal & now is a professor in 
a college in Miss. I am not certain on this point so it will not do to 
charge it direct. It is true that my wife does own about 150 negroes 
in Miss & a cotton plantation. My father-in-law in his lifetime 
offered them to me & I refused to accept them. This fact is stated 
in his will, but I do not wish it brought before the public as the public 
have no business with my private affairs, and besides everybody would 
see that the information must have come from me. My wife has no 
negroes except those in Miss. We have other property in North 
Carolina, but no negroes. It is our intention however to remove all 
our property to Illinois as soon as possible. I put these facts in your 
possession & trust entirely to your discretion. 

I will close this letter here & write you another by this mail about 
politics. 

Your friend, 
C. H. Lanphier, Esq. S. A. Douglas. 

THE MANUSCRIPT ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING LETTER. 

The Quincy Whig and other whig papers are publishing an article 
purporting to be copied from a Mississippi paper abusing Judge 
Douglas as the owner of 100 slaves, and at the same time accusing 
him of being a Wilmot Freesoiler. That the article originated in this 
state, and was sent to Mississippi for publication in order that it might 
be republished here we shall not question nor take the trouble to prove. 
The paternity of the article, the motive that prompted it, and the 
misrepresentations it contains are too obvious to require particular 
notice. If it had been written by a Mississipian he would have known 
that the statement in regard to the ownership of the negroes was 

55 



totally untrue. No one will pretend that Judge Douglas has any 
other property in Mississippi than that which was acquired in the 
right of his wife by inheritance upon the death of her father, and 
anyone who will take the trouble to examine the statutes of that 
State in the Secretary's oflfice in this city will find that by the laws of 
Mississippi all the property of a married woman, whether acquired 
by will, gift, or otherwise, becomes her separate and exclusive estate 
and is not subject to the control or disposal of her husband nor sub- 
ject to his debts. We do not pretend to know whether the father 
of Mrs. Douglas at the time of his death owned slaves in Mississippi 
or not. We have heard the statement made by the whigs but have 
not deemed it of sufficient importance to inquire into its truth. If it 
should turn out so in no event could Judge Douglas become the 
owner or have the disposal of or be responsible for them. The laws 
of the State forbid it, and also forbid slaves under such circumstances 
from being removed without or emancipated within the limits of the 
State. But one chief object in referring to the article in question was 
to correct a gross misrepresentation in regard to Judge Douglas's 
opinions upon the slavery question. He is charged with pretending 
to be a Freesoiler and a Wilmot Proviso man. There is not a man in 
the (state) who does not know this charge to be utterly false. He 
always voted against the Wilmot Proviso from the time it was first 
introduced until it was finally killed in the Senate by the ratification 
of the treaty. He has always advocated the right of the people in 
each State and Territory to decide the slavery question for themselves. 
When he voted for the prohibition of slavery in the territorial Bills 
this session he declared that he did so in obedience to instructions and 
that the vote was the vote of those who gave the instructions and not 
his own. His opinions and principles have been uniform and con- 
sistent upon this question. The Whigs combined with the Free- 
soilers to pass the instructions and now denounce him for yielding 
obedience to them. 

TO C. H. LANPHIER. 

(Private) 
My Dear Sir : New York, July 5th, 1860. 

It will be necessary for me to remain here some time to perfect 
our organization throughout the Union. In the mean time it is indis- 

56 



pensable that our friends shall organize every county in Illinois thor- 
oughly and open the canvass with vigor and energy. No time must 
be lost, and no effort spared. Our friends here are in good spirits. 
We must make the war boldly against the Northern abolitionists and 
the Southern Disunionists, and give no quarter to either. We should 
treat the Bell and Everett men kindly and cultivate good relations 
with them, for they are Union men. According to present appear- 
ances Breckenridge cannot carry a single state, except South Carolina, 
and perhaps Miss. Bell will probably carry Kentucky, Tennessee, 
North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland & Delaware. We shall probably 
carry Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama & Georgia in 
the South, and hope to get enough more in the free States to be elected 
by the people. We can have no partnership zvith the Bolters. If the 
election goes to the Ho of Reps, Lincoln, Bell and myself will be the 
three highest. If it goes to the Senate Hamlin & Johnson will be 
the tzvo highest. So you see that Breckenridge & Lane can have no 
show in any event. 

Richardson has just returned from New England, and reports 
very favorable. He thinks we will carry Maine, New Hampshire, 
Rhode Island & Conn. In New York our friends are confident of 
carrying the State, and also in New Jersey. We hope for the best 
in Penn. 

Now organize & rally in 111. & the North West. The changes 
in our favor are enormous in the East. Organize the State. 

Yours truly, 
C. H. Lanphier, Esq. S. A. Douglas. 



It may be of interest to compare Senator Douglas's rosy prog- 
nostications at the opening of the campaign with the actual results. 
Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, and 
Douglas 12. Yet Douglas stood second in the popular vote, having 
almost as many votes as Breckenridge and Bell combined. 



57 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 

Sept. 1, 1838. 

I this day commence this memorandum or journal of passing 
events for the purpose of refreshing my mind in future upon sub- 
jects that might otherwise be forgotten. It may be well to turn my 
attention to the past as well as the future, and record such facts as 
are within my recollection or have come to my knowledge, and may 
be interesting or useful to myself or others hereafter. 

I learn from my mother that I was born in the town of Brandon, 
in the County of Rutland, and State of Vermont on the 23d day of 
April, 1813. My father, Stephen A. Douglas, was a graduate of 
Middlebury College, a physician by profession, and a man very much 
beloved by all who knew him. I only speak of my father as I have 
always heard others speak of him, for he died when I was only about 
two months old, and of course, I cannot recollect him. I have often 
been told that he was holding me in his arms when he departed this 
world. My mother, who thank God yet lives, was a Miss Sarah 
Fisk before she was married. My parents had but two children, my 
sister Sarah A. Douglas (who has since married Julius N. Granger, 
of Manchester Centre, Ontario County, N. Y.) and myself. Upon 
the death of my father, my mother moved to a small farm left her by 
her father about three miles north of my native village, and resided 
with her brother, Edward Fisk, who was an industrious, economical, 
clever old bachelor, and wanted some one to keep house for him. 
This arrangement suited them both as their farms joined, and each 
was so situated as to need the aid of the other. Here I lived with 
iny mother and uncle upon the farm until I was about fifteen years 
of age, and then determined to select some other mode of living. 
I had no great aversion to working on a farm, nor was I much dis- 
satisfied with my uncle, but thought him rather a hard master, and 
unwilling to give me those opportunities of improvement and educa- 
tion which I thought I was entitled to. I had enjoyed the benefits 
of a common school education three months each year, and had been 
kept diligently at work the rest of the time. I thought it a hard- 
ship that my uncle would have the use of my mother's farm and 
also the benefit of my labor without any other equivalent than my 
boarding and clothes. I therefore determined upon leaving my home 

68 



and my true friends, and see what I could do for myself in the wide 
world among strangers. My mother remonstrated, warned me of the 
dangers and temptations to which young men are exposed, and insisted 
upon my selecting some trade or engaging in some business that would 
give me a steady home and regular employment. I promised to com- 
ply with her wishes, that is, keep good company, or in other words, 
keep out of bad company, avoid all immoral and vicious practices, 
attend church regularly, and obey the regulations of my employer ; 
in short I promised everything she wanted, if she would consent to my 
leaving home. Accordingly in the Spring of 1828, being about 
fifteen years of age, I bid my mother, sister and uncle farewell, and 
left home for Middlebury, about fourteen miles distant, and engaged 
to learn the cabinet making trade with one Nahum Parker. I put 
on my apron and went to work, sawing table legs from two inch 
plank, making wash stands, bed steads, &c., &c. I was delighted 
with the change of home and employment. There was a novelty about 
it that rendered it peculiarly interesting. My labor furnished exercise 
for the mind as well as the body. I have never been placed in any 
situation or been engaged in any business which I enjoyed to so great 
an extent as the cabinet shop. I then felt contented and happy, and 
never aspired to any other distinction than that connected with my 
trade and improvements in the arts. Towards the end of the year 
I became dissatisfied with my employer in consequence of his insist- 
ing upon my performing some menial services in the house. I was 
willing to do anything connected with the shop but could not consent 
to perform the duties of a servant in the house. A difficulty soon 
arose between Mr. Parker and his wife and myself, and resulted in 
my leaving him and returning home. So much was I attached to the 
life of a mechanic, I could not content myself at home and soon got 
a situation in the shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton, a cabinet maker 
in Brandon, my native village. I remained with my new employer 
about a year, and pursued my business strictly, as all the apprentices 
in the shop were required to do. Whilst I lived with Mr. Parker I 
formed a taste for reading, particularly political works, by being 
associated with a number of young men who spent their time nights 
and Sundays in reading and study. At this time politics ran high in 
the presidential election between General Jackson and J. Q. Adams. 

59 



My associate apprentices and myself were warm advocates of Gen. 
Jackson's claims, whilst our employer was an ardent supporter of Mr. 
Adams and Mr. Clay. From this moment my politics became fixed, 
and all subsequent reading, reflection and observation have but con- 
firmed my early attachment to the cause of Democracy. 

In the winter of 1829 and 1830 I was taken sick and compelled 
to return home. My physicians informed me that my physical 
strength was too feeble to enable me to work at the cabinet business, 
and that it would be necessary for me to select some other occupation. 
Finding my health too feeble to work in the shop, I commenced going 
to school at the Academy in Brandon, under the direction of J. N. 
Chipman, and continued under his instruction until the fall of' 1830, 
when I removed to Canandaigua, Ontario County, N. Y. My sister 
had previously married Julius N. Granger, and removed to his resi- 
dence in Manchester Centre, Ontario County, N. Y., and this year, 
1830, my mother married his father ; and now the father and mother 
and only son and only daughter became united in one family where 
they continue to reside in the enjoyment of peace, plenty and happiness. 
Upon removing to the State of New York in December, 1830, I be- 
came a student in the Academy of Canandaigua under the superintend- 
ence of Prof. Henry Howe, where I continued until the latter part 
of 1832. Whilst connected with the Academy at Canandaigua I de- 
voted myself zealously to my studies, the Greek and Latin languages, 
mathematics, rhetoric, logic, &c., and made considerable improvement. 

About the 1st of January, 1833, I left the Academy and entered 
the office of Walter & Levi Hubbell as a student at law. I pursued 
my law studies diligently five days in the week, and the sixth I spent 
in reviewing my classical studies, until sometime in the month of 
June in that year. Finding myself in straightened pecuniary circum- 
stances, and knowing my mother's inability to support me through a 
regular course of law studies, which would continue about four years 
longer, according to the statutes of New York, requiring a course of 
seven years classical and legal study before admission to the bar. I 
determined upon removing to the western country and relying upon 
my own efforts for a support henceforth. My mother and relatives 
remonstrated, urging that I was too young and inexperienced for such 
an adventure ; but finding my resolution fixed and unchangeable, they 

60 



reluctantly consented, and kindly furnished me with three hundred 
dollars, the last of my patrimony, with which to pay my expenses. 
On the 24th of June, 1833 (being 20 years of age) I bid farewell to 
my friends, and started alone for the "great West," without having 
any particular place of destination in view. The first night I arrived 
at Bufifalo, and thence took a trip to the Battle Grounds of Chippewa, 
Niagara, the Falls, &c., &c., and returning to Buffalo in a few days, I 
embarked on a steam boat for Cleveland, Ohio. Arriving at Cleveland 
I presented a few letters of introduction to some gentlemen of that 
place which I had received from Messrs. Francis Granger, Mark H. 
Sibley and other kind friends. By means of these letters I immediately 
became acquainted with Sherlock J. Andrews, Esq., an accomplished 
and intelligent gentleman and distinguished lawyer of that city. Being 
pleased with Cleveland and its prospects for business, and also with 
the few acquaintances I formed there, I immediately determined upon 
remaining there. By the statutes of Ohio I was, required to pursue 
the study of law one year within the limits of that State before I 
could be admitted to practice. For this purpose Mr. Andrews was 
kind enough to offer me the use of his office and library, which I gladly 
accepted, and entered upon my studies with increased spirit and zeal. 
In a very few days, however, I found myself prostrate upon my bed 
with the bilious fever, and was confined until some time in the month 
of October, about four months. This sickness has often since been, 
and still continues to be, the subject of the most serious and profound 
reflection. My condition, the circumstances with which I was sur- 
rounded, the doubtful and sometimes hopeless issue, and especially my 
feelings, thoughts, and meditations, are all now fresh in my mind. 
I was among entire strangers. During the whole time I never saw a 
face I had ever seen before ; I was so feeble as to be entirely helpless, 
unable even to turn myself in bed ; I was advised by my physicians 
that there was no reasonable hope of my recovery, and that I ought 
to be prepared for my final dissolution which was then expected to 
take place from day to day. I was in the full enjoyment of my 
senses, perfectly conscious of my condition, and listened patiently and 
calmly to all they told me, and felt perfectly indifferent as to the 
result. I felt satisfied with the past and no particular hopes or appre- 
hensions of the future. I thought I was on the dividing line between 

61 



this world and the next, must continue to exist in the one or the 
other, was wilHng to take either, and felt no choice which. In short, 
during that four months of severe sickness, I enjoyed more peace and 
contentment of mind, more perfect freedom from all care and 
trouble, except occasional bodily pain, and more negative happiness 
than during any other similar period of my life. 

That such should have been the state of my mind under such 
peculiar and trying circumstances, has ever been to me the subject 
of curiosity, wonder and amazement. I can account for it upon no 
principle of philosophy or human nature, and now make this private 
record of the same for the purpose of seeing if future experience and 
observation shall solve the mystery. 

Upon regaining my strength in the month of October so far as 
to be able to walk, I paid ofif all my bills occasioned by my sickness 
or otherwise and found I had about $40.00 left. I then became 
reckless and adventurous, and determined to leave the place. Ac- 
cordingly I took passage on a canal boat for Portsmouth on the Ohio 
River, thence on a steam boat to Cincinnati, thence to Louisville, thence 
to St. Louis, Mo., remaining in each place a few days, without any 
particular object in view, and ready to embark in any adventure 
adapted to my taste and feeling which should present itself. 

At St. Louis I soon found my small pittance of money was 
about exhausted, and that I must immediately engage in some employ- 
ment there which would defray my expenses, or go to some place not 
far distant where I could do so. My first efifort was to obtain a 
situation in some law office in the city, where I could write and per- 
form office labor sufficient to pay my expenses, and during the rest of 
the time pursue my law studies. Here a difficulty presented itself 
which I had not foreseen and guarded against. I was more than a 
thousand miles from home, or from any person whom I knew or who 
knew me, and had no letters of introduction. Perceiving this difficulty 
I felt great delicacy in offering my services. Stern and impending 
necessity staring me in the face, I resolved at all hazards to make the 
effort. I first called on Mr. Bates, introduced myself and told him 
my business and situation. He received and treated me kindly and 
politely ; and informed me that he had nothing for me to do : but 
would be happy to see me at his office, &c., for all which I tendered 
him my grateful acknowledgements and retired. 

82 



After making a similar effort with like success with Mr. Spaul- 
ding, I paid my tavern bill and left the city, going to Jacksonville, 
Illinois. 

At Jacksonville I formed a few acquaintances and attempted to 
get into business of some kind, say teaching school, clerking, &c., but 
without success. When I arrived at Jacksonville I had left one dollar 
and twenty-five cents in money, and finding that would not pay my 
board more than one day at the tavern, I sold a few school books I 
had with me for a few dollars, and took up my lodgings at a private 
house, Mr, Heslip's, whose family I have known and esteemed ever 
since. One of my first acquaintances at Jacksonville was Murray 
McConnel, Esq., a lawyer of some reputation, who advised me to 
go to Pekin on the Illinois River and open a law office. I informed 
him that I had never practiced law, had not yet procured my license, 
nor had I any library. He informed me that he would furnish me 
with a few books, such as I would stand in the most need of im- 
mediately, and wait for the pay until I was able to pay him, and did 
so to the amount of $30.00 worth, which I received and subsequently 
paid him for. He told me that a license was a matter of no con- 
sequence, that I could practice before a justice of the peace without 
one, and could get one at any time I desired to do so. I concluded to 
take his advice, and consequently packed up my things and went to 
Meredosia on the Illinois River to take a steam boat to Pekin. Arriv- 
ing at the river, I waited one week for a steam boat, and then learned 
that the only boat which was expected up the river that season had 
blown up at Alton, and consequently there would be no boat up until 
the next spring. What was now to be done? After paying my bill at the 
tavern, I had but fifty cents left. I could find nothing to do there, 
and had no money to get away with. Something must be done, and 
that soon. I enquired as to the prospect of getting a school, and was 
told by a farmer residing in the country a few miles that he thought 
that I could obtain one at Exeter, about ten miles distant ; and if I 
would go home with him that night, he would go to Exeter with me 
the next day. I accepted his invitation, left my trunk at Meredosia, 
rode behind the farmer on the same horse to his home, and the next 
day we both went to Exeter. He introduced me to several citizens 
who were very polite and kind ; but did not think a school could be 

63 



obtained there; but if I would go to Winchester, eight or ten miles 
further they had no doubt I would succeed in obtaining one. I 
thought this was rather poor encouragement ; but what was to be 
done? I was out of money, and still in too feeble health to perform 
any very arduous labor ; and must do something to live ; for I was too 
proud to beg. I therefore determined to go to Winchester and make 
another effort. Accordingly I parted with my friend, the kind hearted, 
hospitable farmer and taking my cloak on my arm, went to Win- 
chester on foot that night. Arriving in town, I went to the only tavern 
in the place, introduced myself to the landlord and told him I wished 
to stop a few days with him to which he readily assented. The land- 
lord introduced me to the citizens generally, who seemed pleased with 
the idea of a new school in their little town, and in a few days ob- 
tained for me a subscription list of about forty scholars. In the mean- 
time there was, on the second day after my arrival, an administrator's 
sale, at which all the personal property of a dead man's estate was to 
be disposed of at auction, and the administrator applied to me to be 
clerk at the auction, make out the sale bills, draw the notes, &c., which 
I very cheerfully consented to do, and performed the duty in the 
best style I knew how, and received five dollars for two days labor 
therein. About the 1st of December I commenced my school, and 
closed it about the 1st of March, having during the whole time a goodly 
number of scholars, and giving as I believe general satisfaction to both 
scholars and parents. During this period I attended to considerable 
law business before justices of the peace, and formed an extensive 
acquaintance with the people in that part of the country. There was 
considerable political excitement growing out of the veto of the U. S. 
Bank and the removal of the deposits by Gen. Jackson, or rather the 
removal of the Secretary of the Treasury because he would not remove 
the deposits, and the appointment of Mr. Taney in his place who did 
remove them from the vaults of the U. S. Bank. One evening at the 
Lyceum, Mr. Josiah Lambert, a lawyer of some distinction from 
Jacksonville, made a speech, denouncing the leading measures of Gen. 
Jackson's administration, and especially the veto and removal of the 
deposits. He characterized the first of those acts as arbitrary and 
tyrannical, and the last as dangerous and unconstitutional. Being a 
great admirer of Gen. Jackson's public and political character and a 

04 



warm supporter of the principles of his administration, I could not 
remain silent when the old hero's character, public and private, was 
traduced, and his measures misrepresented and denounced. I was 
then familiar with all the principles, measures and facts involved in 
the controversy, having been an attentive reader of the debates in 
Congress and the principal newspapers of the day, and having read 
also with great interest, the principal works in this country; such as 
the debates in the convention that formed the Constitution of the 
United States, and the convention of the several states on the adoption 
of the Constitution, the Federalist, John Adams' work denominated a 
defense of the American Constitution, the opinions of Randolph, 
Hamilton and Jefferson on the Constitutionality of the Bank, and the 
History of the Bank as published by Gales & Seaton, Jefferson's 
Works, &c. I had read all of them and many other political 
works with great care and interest and had my political opinions 
firmly established. I engaged in the debate with a good deal of zeal 
and warmth, and defended the administration of Gen. Jackson and the 
cause of the Democratic party in a manner which appeared highly 
gratifying to my political friends, and which certainly gave me some 
little reputation as a public speaker ; much more than I deserved. 

When the first quarter of my school expired I settled my ac- 
counts, and finding that I had made enough to pay my expenses, I 
determined to remove to Jacksonville, the county seat of the same 
(Morgan) county, and commence the practice of the law. In the month 
of March I applied to the Hon. Samuel D. Lockwood, one of the 
justices of the Supreme Court, and after a short examination, obtained 
a license, and immediately opened an office, being then less than twen- 
ty-one years of age. During the first week of my residence at Jack- 
sonville the Whig (alias Federal party) called a county meeting, and 
made speeches and passed resolutions denouncing the administration 
in the severest terms, and more especially in relation to the bank and 
currency question. The next week the Democrats called a meeting, 
one of the most numerous and spirited I have ever witnessed in that 
county. It was composed principally of farmers and mechanics, men 
who are honest in their political sentiments and feel a deep interest 
in the proper administration of the public affairs, although but few 
of them are accustomed to public discussion. It so happened that at 

65 



that time out of twelve members of the bar there was not a Democrat 
among them. This meeting I attended, and at the earnest soHcitation 
of my political friends (for personal friends I had not then had time 
to form), I consented to make a speech. The excitement was intense, 
and I was rather severe in my remarks upon the opposition ; so much 
so as to excite the bitter hostility of the whole of that party, and of 
course the warm support of my own party. The next week the 
Patriot, the organ of the opposition printed and published by James 
G. Edwards, Esq., devoted two entire columns of that paper to me 
and my speech, and continued the same course for two or three suc- 
cessive weeks. The necessary consequence was that I immediately be- 
came known to every man in the county, and was placed in such a 
situation as to be supported by one party and opposed by the other. 
Phis notoriety, acquired by accident and founded on no peculiar merit, 
proved highly serviceable to me in my profession ; for within one week 
thereafter I received for collection demands to the amount of thou- 
sands of dollars from persons I had never seen or heard of, and who 
would not probably have known that such a person as myself was in 
existence, but for the attacks upon me in the opposition papers. So 
essential was the service thus rendered me by my opponents that I 
have sometimes doubted whether I was not morally bound to pay the 
editor for his abuse according to the usual prices of advertisements. 
This incident illustrates a principle which it is important for men 
of the world and especially politicians to bear in mind. How foolish, 
how impolitic, the indiscriminate abuse of political opponents whose 
humble condition or insignificance prevents the possibility of injury, 
and who may be greatly benefited by the notoriety thus acquired. 
I firmly believe this is one of the frequent and great errors 
committed by the political editors of the present day. Indeed, I 
sincerely doubt whether I owe most to the kind and efficient support 
of my friends, and no man similarly situated ever had better and 
truer friends, or to the violent, reckless and imprudent opposition 
of my enemies. Certain I am that without both of these causes united, 
I never could have succeeded as well as I have done. But I must for- 
bear ; for I find that I am philosophizing, which is far from my pres- 
ent purpose. 



66 



During the summer of 1834 my time was about equally divided 
between law and politics, reading and practicing the one and preaching 
the other. There was a general election pending for governor, con- 
gressman, and members of the Legislature, in which I felt no ordinary 
interest and took an active part. I supported the Democratic candi- 
dates ; William Kinney for governor against Gen. Joseph Duncan, and 
Wm. L. May for Congress against Benjamin Mills, and the Demo- 
cratic ticket for the Legislature in my own county. We lost our gov- 
ernor ; elected our congressman ; and a part of our legislative ticket. 

At this time John J. Hardin, Esq., (now Gen. Hardin) held the 
office of state's attorney, under an appointment from Governor Rey- 
nolds, which then had two years to run. He had procured this ap- 
pointment through the aid and influence of Col. James Evans, Col. 
William Weatherford, Capt. John Wyatt and other leading Democrats, 
every one of whom he opposed at the next election after the appoint- 
ment. Capt. Wyatt was the only one of them who succeeded in his 
election, and was so indignant at Hardin for what he called his in- 
gratitude, that he determined upon removing him from office at all 
hazards. The opposition having succeeded in electing their gov- 
ernor, there was no hope from that quarter; and the only resort left 
was to repeal the law conferring the appointment upon the governor, 
and make the office elective by the Legislature. At the request of 
Capt. Wyatt, I wrote the bill, and on the second day of the session of 
the Legislature which commenced on the first Monday in December, 
1864, he introduced his bill, and also another bill written by myself 
making the county recorder's election by the people, instead of being 
appointed by the governor. I felt no peculiar interest in these bills 
any further than I thought them correct in principle, and desired to see 
them pass because my friends warmly supported them. Both the 
bills were violently opposed by the opposition (alias Federal party) 
and advocated by a large majority of the Democrats, and finally passed 
by a small majority. When sent to the Council of Revision (com- 
posed of the governor and judges of the Supreme Court) for approval, 
they were both vetoed ; the former as unconstitutional, and the latter 
because it was inexpedient. Then came a desperate struggle between 
the friends and opponents of the bills, and especially the state's at- 
torney bill. The opposition charged that its only object was to repeal 

67 



Hardin out of office in order to elect myself in his place, and that the 
whole movement had its origin in Wyatt's malice and my selfishness 
and ambition. I will here remark, and most solemnly aver it to be true, 
that up to the time this charge was made against me, I never had con- 
ceived the idea of being a candidate for the office, nor had any friend 
suggested or hinted to me that I could or ought to receive it. But 
from that moment forward, the friends of the bill declared that, in 
the event they passed the bill over the heads of the council, I should 
be elected to the office. At this time I did not desire to be a candi- 
date, for I had no reason to suppose I could be elected over so formid- 
able an opponent who had been a long time a resident of the state, 
had fought in the Black Hawk war, and was well acquainted with 
the members. My short residence in the state, want of acquaintance, 
experience in my profession and age (being only twenty-one years 
old), I considered insuperable objections. My friends, however, 
thought differently, passed the bill, and elected me on the first ballot 
by four votes majority. 

I will here remark that although I wrote this bill and reaped first 
fruits under it, and was inclined at that time to think it was cor- 
rect in principle and ought to become a law ; yet subsequent experience, 
observation and reflection have convinced me of my error ; and I now 
believe that all Legislative elections ought to be abolished, and the 
officers either appointed by the governor and senate, or elected by the 
people. In this remark I do not mean to include clerks of our courts, 
whose appointments, I am inclined to think, ought to be vested in the 
judges. 

Immediately upon my election as state's attorney I procured all 
the standard works upon criminal law within my reach, such as Arch- 
bold, Chitty, Roscoe, McNally, Hale's Pleas of the Crown, &c., &c., 
and devoted myself to the study of them with a determination of 
making myself master of that branch of my profession. My official 
duties being exclusively within the line of my profession, I now ap- 
plied myself assiduously to study and practice. How far I succeeded 
in this, I must leave to others, who are more impartial judges than 
myself. An amusing circumstance occurred in McLean county at the 
first court after my election as prosecuting attorney. The grand jury 
had found a large number of indictments for different offences, and 

6S 



I had been engaged all night in writing them, in great haste, in order 
to discharge the grand jury and enable them to return to their families. 
After the grand jurors were discharged John T. Stuart, Esq., came 
into court and moved to quash all the indictments, although he had 
been employed in but a small number of the cases. He stated his 
reasons for quashing the indictments, which were that they were 
presented by the "grand jurors in and for the county of McClean" 
when in fact there was no such county as "McClean," the true name 
of the county being "McLean." The manner of making this motion 
was very pompous and accompanied with some rather contemptuous 
remarks imputing ignorance to the writer of the indictments. Con- 
trasting my youth and inexperience with the long practice and repu- 
tation of the opposing counsel, I considered his conduct extremely un- 
generous, and more especially in a county where he was well ac- 
quainted with the people and I was an entire stranger. The moment 
the motion to quash was made and the objection was pointed out, it 
struck my mind as being fatal to all the indictments, and had it been 
done in a respectful and courteous manner, I should have made no 
objection to the indictments being quashed. When the judge (Stephen 
T. Logan) asked me if I had anything to say in support of the indict- 
ments, I told him I did not consider it necessary as yet to say any- 
thing, Mr. Stuart having made the motion and having the affirma- 
tive of the question, the burden of proof of course rested upon him. 
That I presumed the court would not take official notice that I had 
not spelled the name of the county right until some evidence should 
be produced, it would then be time enough for me to rebut such evi- 
dence. The court decided that it could not officially take notice of 
the precise mode of spelling the name of the county, and gave Mr. 
Stuart time to procure the statute creating and naming the county. My 
object was now accomplished; knowing there was none of the 
statutes to be found in the county, and that it would require a good 
deal of traveling, trouble and expense to procure one, which would 
sufficiently rebuke the gentleman's insolence ; but not doubting that 
when the statute was produced, it would show that the defect in the 
indictments was fatal and they ought to be quashed. After a lapse 
of two days the statute was procured from an adjoining county, and 
read to the court by Mr. Stuart, when to his astonishment, and I will 

69 



say to the astonishment of myself and the whole bar, it appeared that 
the name of the county in the indictment was right, and that the 
learned gentleman did not know how to spell the name of the county 
he had practiced in for years. It turned the joke upon him so com- 
pletely, and excited so much mirth and humor at his expense, that he 
could not conceal his chagrin and mortification. The indictments were 
all sustained by the court, much to my gratification. Some time af- 
terwards I took the pains to compare this printed statute with the 
enrolled bill in the office of the secretary of state, and found there was 
a misprint, the true name of the county being McLean. This small 
incident, although of no consequence of itself, has been an instruc- 
tive lesson to me in the practice of law ever since, to wit : Admit 
nothing, and require my adversary to prove everything material to the 
success of his cause. Every lawyer's experience teaches him that 
many good causes are saved and bad ones gained by a strict observance 
of this rule. During the time I held the office of state's attorney, 
I conducted many important criminal prosecutions, and as far as I 
have been able to learn, acquitted myself in a manner satisfactory to 
my friends and the public generally. 

In August, 1836, I was elected to the Legislature from the county 
of Morgan. The contest was a very spirited one, conducted almost 
solely upon national politics and party grounds. Each party ran a 
full ticket and strived to elect the whole ticket. The stump speeches 
were made, principally by Gen. John J. Hardin on behalf of the Whig 
ticket, and by myself in support of the Democratic ticket. The con- 
test resulted in the election of five Democrats and one Whig 
(Gen. Hardin). 

Note. The original of the above sketch of Senator Stephen 
A. Douglas, of Illinois, is in a small blank book found among his 
private papers. It is in his own handwriting, hastily written and 
evidently never revised or continued. It is dated September 1st, 1838, 
when he was only twenty-five years of age, and does not extend beyond 
his service in the Legislature. It was evidently never intended for 
publication but may now have some public interest as the candid 
statement of the boyhood and early manhood of a young man who 
had bravely and successfully faced life's battle ; and who was writing 
frankly purely for his own future information, and at a time when 

70 



the circumstances were yet fresh in his mind. Autobiographies are 
generally carefully written in old age when the circumstances of early 
youth have grown dim, and perhaps unconsciously colored by the 
struggles and experiences of after life. 

Robert M. Douglas. 
March 5, 1909. 

ESTIMATES OF DOUGLAS, FROM AUTHORS AND 

ORATORS. 

To gain an adequate appreciation of the estimation in which 
Douglas was held by authors and statesmen, who were his contem- 
poraries and personally acquainted with him, or of a later generation 
who have made a special study of his career, it is necessary to read 
many books. We give below some brief quotations, which will show 
what those best qualified to judge thought of him. They are from 
men of all shades of political opinion, except the southern slaveholding 
class. The first ten are from addresses delivered in the U. S. Senate 
and House of Representatives soon after his death : 

The sublime spectacle of twenty million people rising as one man 
in vindication of constitutional liberty and free government, when 
assailed by misguided rebels and plotting traitors, is to a considerable 
extent due to his efforts. His magnanimous and patriotic course in 
this trying hour of his country's destiny was the crowning act of his 
life. — Lyman Trumbull, Senator from Illinois. 

In my judgment, he was in his time the greatest living master of 
forensic discourse — Senator McDougall, of California. 

By his voluntary acts he furnished the strongest possible evidence 
that with him the preservation of the Union and the Constitution were 
paramount to all other considerations. — Senator Nesmith, of Oregon. 

I would be unjust to my feelings should I fail to declare how 
deep and sincere was my sorrow for the loss of this distinguished 
Senator, and especially at a time when he had the power, to a greater 
extent than any other living man, to render valuable and important 
services to our perplexed and imperiled country, and the temper and 
disposition of mind to use that power as it should have been used by 
a patriot and statesman. — Senator Browning, of Illinois. 

He was a party man, but he loved his country better than his 
party. — Senator Anthony, of Rhode Island. 

71 



Dying at an age where the usefulness of statesmen usually begins, 
he leaves a fame that will outlive eulogies and survive monuments. — 
Representative Richardson, of Illinois. 

As an extempore speaker, his capabilities were transcendent and 
amazing, and unquestionably place him in the first rank of debaters of 
any age or country. — Representative McClernand, of Illinois. 

In all my intercourse of an intimate character with him, I found 
him to be an honorable and patriotic man, disinterested and noble in 
his patriotism, and ready to sacrifice his personal interests for the 
good of his country. — Representative Crittenden, of Kentucky. 

Oh for a Clay, a Webster, a Douglas, in this great ordeal of con- 
stitutional freedom ! While the country is entangled by these ser- 
pents of revolution, we shall miss the giant, — the Hercules of the 
West — whose limbs had grown sinewy in strangling the poisonous 
brood. — Representative S. S. Cox, of Ohio. 

Above and beyond all his other great qualities, his love of country, 
his devotion to the Constitution, to the Union, to the glorious flag 
which is its emblem, were the most prominent traits of Senator 
Douglas's character. — Representative Law, of Indiana. 

When war grew out of the conflicting pretensions of the Union 
and the Confederacy, he took nobly and heartily the side of his whole 
country. — Horace Greeley: The American Conflict. 

In the course he pursued and still purposed to pursue, he was 

unquestionably actuated by patriotic motives His was the 

patriotic course, and he exhibited his earnest purpose to preserve the 
unity and life of the nation. — Henry Wilson : The Rise and Fall of 
the Slave Power in America. 

His last words to the public have a breadth of patriotism worthy 
of the noblest statesmanship. — William Henry Smith : A Political 
History of Slavery. 

From the death of Clay till the presidential election of 1860 the 
most resonant voice of them all was the voice of Stephen Arnold 
Douglas. It is scarcely too much to say that during the whole period 
the centre of the stage was his, and his the most stirring part. — 
William Garrott Brown : Stephen Arnold Douglas. 

While Lincoln lost a valuable coadjutor and the country .an 
important factor in the work of sustaining national unity, the Demo- 
cratic organization, thoroughly broken as it was by the war, was 
deprived of the man who above all others would have been competent 
and courageous in bringing about its re-establishment. It is probable 
that, had he lived, Douglas's career would have been as significant in 

72 



later American history as it was in the critical decade of 1850-1860. — 
Henry Parker Willis: Stephen A. Douglas. 

Great as is the fame of Mr. Lincoln, it may be doubted whether 
his name would ever have been known to any considerable degree 
beyond the limits of the State of Illinois, but for his proving himself 
to be able to meet and successfully cope with the Senator in what 
are known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and it may be doubted 
whether President Lincoln could have been successful in the mighty 
work of maintaining the integrity of the Nation but for the timely 
support of Senator Douglas. — Clark E. Carr: Stephen A. Douglas, 
His Life, Public Services, &c. 

In all his long Congressional career there is nothing that re- 
dounds more to Dcfuglas's everlasting credit than his willingness to 
defend the policy of his successful rival, while men of Lincoln's own 
party were doubting 

No one, it may be safely affirmed, could have so steeled the 
hearts of men in southern Illinois for the death grapple 

The greatest of War Democrats 

Had he but lived to temper justice with mercy, what a power for 
good might he not have been in the days of reconstruction. — Allen 
Johnson: Stephen A. Douglas, a Study in American Politics. 

Mr. Douglas had wished to be President, but was much more 
powerful in his real place of leadership on the floor of the Senate. 



Mr. Douglas, no mere partisan, after all, but a man stedfast in 
the principles upon which he had professed to act. — Woodrow Wilson ; 
History of the American People. 

It is hardly too much to say of those speeches* that they were 
decisive of a unified North in the "impending conflict," and that they 
constituted beyond comparison the greatest individual service rendered 
to the Union by any public man, not even excepting Mr. Lincoln's, 
in the crucial days following the attack on Fort Sumter. In their 
far-reaching results they have rarely been equalled and never sur- 
passed by any forensic effort of ancient or modern times. — James 
Harrison Wilson : Under the Old Flag. 

Without the aid of Douglas, the "Crime against Kansas," so 
eloquently depicted by Mr. Sumner, would have been complete. With 
his aid it was prevented 

With danger to the Union his early affections and the associa- 
tions of his young life had come back. He remembered that he was 
a native of New England, that he had been reared in New York, that 

*At Springfield, 111., April 25, 1861, and at Chicago, in June following. 

78 



he had been crowned with honors by the generous and confiding 
people of lUinois. He beHeved in the Union of the States, and he 
stood by his country with a fervor and energy of patriotism which 
enshrined his name in the history and in the hearts of the American 
people. His death created the profoundest impression in the country, 
and the Administration felt that one of the mighty props of the Union 
had been torn away. — James G. Blaine : Tzventy Years of Congress. 



Many other quotations similar to the above might be printed here, 
but enough has been given to accomplish our object. We subjoin 
one more, which gives a view of his personality by a writer who was 
well acquainted with him. 

He had a full and rich voice, was fluent in speech, but spoke with 
deliberation and perfect distinctness of enunciation, and was thor- 
oughly self-possessed. He was short in stature, but he was broad- 
shouldered and deep-chested, and had a large and finely developed 
head. I used to think that his head, though smaller than Webster's 
was modelled after the same pattern. 

Mr. Douglas's manner, though easy and utterly unconstrained, 
was dignified and urbane. Sometimes, when he was speaking with 
animation, he had a good natured, earnest, lionlike look, blended with 
the utmost simplicity and illuminated with a high degree of intelligence. 
On such an occasion, I doubt if a stranger, who heard him for the 
first time and did not even know his name, could have listened to him 
ten minutes without being strongly attracted by his engaging manner, 
nor without at least beginning to feel a personal regard for him. 
He was still more winning in private intercourse. There was not the 
least taint of snobbishness about him ; he was utterly devoid of preten- 
tiousness. He never put on what vain and self-conscious Senators 
imagine to be airs of Senatorial dignity. His dignity was of that 
solid, genuine, American sort which can unconsciously take care of 
itself without airs of any kind. — Oliver Duer : Great Senators of the 
United States. 



Mr. Douglas today, in a clear, emphatic, and, I fear, prophetic 
voice, painted the horrors of a war we are bringing on ourselves, 
and was equally severe on the radicals of both sides. There is some- 
thing very impressive about him, and I felt as if I were listening to 
the plain, unvarnished truth. Mrs. Douglas was in the gallery of 
the Senate looking the pride and confidence she felt in her husband's 
talents, though there is a modesty in her manner in charming contrast 
with her truly magnificent appearance. — Diary of Mrs. Eugene 
McLean, in Harper's Magazine for January, 1914. 



74 




STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 



A FEW WORDS IN CONCLUSION. 

Stephen A. Douglas was one of the greatest men of his time in 
the United States, and in some respects the greatest. As a Democratic 
statesman and leader he was without a rival. 

The great issue in the years when Douglas flourished was the 

slavery question. All others paled into insignificance before it. On 

this question he was not a dodger or trimmer. He took his position 

and maintained it bravely and consistently to the end. What that 

position was may best be known from his own statement of it, as it 

appears in his suggested editorial for the Illinois State Register, as 

printed for the first time in his own words in this volume, and as he 

put it in the first of the debates with Lincoln at Ottawa, 111., August 

21, 1858: 

I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior, therefore he 
ought to be a slave. On the contrary, I hold that humanity and 
Christianity both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every 
right, every privilege and every immunity consistent with the safety 
of the society in which he lives. You and I are bound to extend to 
our inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, every 
facility and immunity consistent with the public good. The question 
then arises, What rights and privileges are consistent with the public 
good? That is a question which each State and each Territory must 
decide for itself. 

This was known as the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and cer- 
tainly appeared fair and reasonable if one did not go far below the 
surface in his consideration of the problem. He adhered to it in the 
matter of the so-called Lecompton constitution of Kansas, when he 
knew that the certain result of his stand would be the embitterment 
of the South against him, and the loss of all political support from 
that section. The Lecompton constitution provided for the protec- 
tion of slavery in Kansas, and was adopted fraudulently and con- 
trary to the wishes of a large majority of the voters of that territory. 
For that reason Douglas opposed its ratification by Congress, though, 
as he stated, he cared nothing whether slavery was established there 
or not, so long as the matter was settled in accordance with the views 
of a majority of the voters there. 

Douglas's great error lay in his failure to realize that slavery 
was fundamentally wrong, and could not be permitted to exist in 

75 



any state or territory, notwithstanding that a majority of its citizens 
might favor it, any more than polygamy, arson or assassination could 
be recognized as an established legal institution in any state. 

The name of Douglas is probably associated in the minds of most 
people today with the great Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois in 
1858, when Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln appeared before 
the people as rival candidates for the United States Senatorship. 
While the subsequent renown of Lincoln became so great as to over- 
shadow that of Douglas, so that Lincoln may now appear to be the 
central figure of those debates, it should not be forgotten that at the 
time they occurred Douglas was a man of national reputation, while 
Lincoln was hardly known outside the borders of his state. He ac- 
quired fame by his ability to hold his own with such a master of 
political debate as Douglas. 

The crowning glory of Douglas's career came after his defeat 
for the presidency in 1860, followed by the attack on Fort Sumter. 
His attitude then was noble and patriotic in the highest degree. He 
exerted his influence on the side of the Union and against rebellion 
and secession, without hesitation and without reserve. He upheld the 
hands of the President in his efforts to suppress the rebellion till his 
untimely death, and had he lived would undoubtedly have been one of 
the strongest bulwarks of the administration. Douglas's decided 
stand settled the question of the attitude of the great mass of the 
northern Democrats. His more than 1.300,000 devoted followers 
rallied to the support of the administration and the defense of the 
Union. What would have been the final outcome if Douglas had 
favored the South or had been lukewarm in his stand for the Union, 
can only be conjectured. But there is no question that the result 
would have been disastrous. 

What would have happened if Douglas had lived to the close of 
the war? This question, of course, cannot be answered with certainty. 
But it is not improbable that had Douglas been elected President and 
lived, there would have been no war. He would have been more or 
less acceptable to both sides and all factions, and might have had 
influence enough with both to bring about an adjustment of the ques- 
tions in dispute without a resort to arms. Had he lived after his 
defeat, there is no doubt that he would have held a high position in the 



councils of the administration. John W. Forney, an intimate friend 
of Douglas, in his Anecdotes of Public Men, states "by authority," that 
had he lived he would have been called into the administration of 
President Lincoln, or placed in one of the highest military com- 
mands. And it is surely reasonable to conclude that when the Re- 
publicans were casting about for a war Democrat to take the vice- 
presidential nomination in 1864, this "greatest of war Democrats" 
would have been their choice, and that on President Lincoln's death 
he, instead of Andrew Johnson, would have become President, and 
thus realized his long cherished ambition. 



77 



APPENDIX 



SPEECH OF HONORABLE FRANK L. FISH 

SUPERIOR JUDGE OF VERMONT 
ON THE LIFE OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 



ADDRESS OF HON. F. L. FISH DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
STUDENTS OF NORWICH UNIVERSITY AT NORTH- 
FIELD, APRIL "23, 1913, 

Six years ago I spoke to the students of Norwich University on 
Abraham Lincohi, a Study in History. Tonight I have come to speak 
on Stephen A. Douglas, the Other Study. It is probably fortunate 
for me that the young men whom I then addressed have gone out to 
meet that measure of success that so justly falls to the lot of the 
graduates of this institution and are not now within the sound of my 
voice. To the few who then heard me, who are now present, I beg 
to make a retraction. On the occasion referred to, it seemed to me that 
for the sake of gaining the presidency Douglas had compromised him- 
self on the subject of slavery and had been inconsistent in his political 
career. To such thought I then gave utterance. After a careful study 
and more impartial inquiry I ask permission to revise the former 
judgment. Although it must be confessed that he was wrong in his 
theory of the solution of the perplexed question of slavery legislation, 
he ought to be credited with being honest with this important question, 
and he was not more inconsistent than have been many of the great 
statesmen of the English-speaking race on this and the other side 
of the Atlantic. 

One hundred years ago today in a little story-and-a-half house, 
still standing in the Village of Brandon, Stephen A. Douglas was born. 
Fifty-two years ago this month he made his last speech for the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion and the integrity of the Union. Fifty-two 
years ago the coming June he passed away. Young as he was, for 
more than a quarter of a century he had been in public life. During 
the decade from 1850 to 1860 he was the most conspicuous leader of 
the Democratic party. After the passing of Webster and Clay in the 
early fifties he was the greatest debater in the national forum. 
Viewed from the standpoint of political activities, of forensic powers 
and accomplishments and of capacity for leadership, he was the most 
remarkable man that Vermont ever produced. Douglas died at a 
time when his country most needed his patriotic services. Had he 
lived to the close of the struggle that he saw the beginning of, his 
name would have been given a shining page on the nation's history. 

so 



The Reaper came too soon. Before the onward march of the great 
character who was his successful rival half a century ago his name 
and fame were soon forgotten, and he is now recalled because of 
Lincoln's relation to the joint debates. It was Douglas's name then 
that gave the debates a national significance and impressed the name 
of Lincoln upon the popular mind. The state of his birth is ignorant 
of his career and one who would discuss intelligently his remarkable 
life must recount the incidents of his rise to national prominence, 
before indulging in eulogy. Fortunate it is that the same years which 
have brought oblivion to his name have produced a generation of men 
who can look without prejudice upon the great man whose measures 
for the settlement of the slavery question did not meet with the 
favor of our fathers. To view Douglas fairly from the present point 
of time he must be considered in the light of the age in which he lived ; 
he should be viewed from the broad standpoint of a New England 
boyhood, a young manhood passed on the prairies of Illinois, and a 
wedded life pervaded by the gentle culture of Southern womanhood. 

Who was Stephen A. Douglas? He was a descendant of William 
Douglas, who was the first of the family by that name to cross the 
ocean from Scotland to America. In 1645 a son was born to William 
Douglas in Boston, from whom descended in 1750 Benajah Douglas, 
the grandfather of Stephen A. Douglas, who settled in Rensselaer 
County, New York. Benajah married Martha Arnold, a descendent 
of Governor William Arnold of Rhode Island, whom tradition says 
was a soldier in the Revolutionary army. Benajah moved to Brandon, 
Vermont, and purchased a four hundred acre farm where he resided 
until his death. In physical appearance Stephen A. Douglas resembled 
his grandfather. Five times he was elected a selectman of Brandon 
and as many times honored by an election to the Legislature. 

The outline of Dr. Stephen A. Douglas is far less distinct than 
that of his father, but it appears that he was born at Stephentown, 
Rensselaer County, New York, where he spent no more than his boy- 
hood. He married Sally Fisk of Brandon, the daughter of a well-to- 
do farmer, of which marriage were born a son and a daughter. Doctor 
Douglas was a physician of skill and promise, but his career was cut 
short by a sudden stroke which overcame him as he held his infant son, 
Stephen A., in his arms. 

81 



Following the death of her husband, Douglas's mother took him 
with his sister to the farm in Brandon which she and her brother 
had inherited from their father, and here she and the children resided 
for fourteen years, until the marriage of the brother and the birth 
of a son, whose claims upon the father prompted the latter to renounce 
his intention to give his nephew a college education. Bitterly dis- 
appointed over this, Douglas at once left his uncle's roof, walked 
fifteen miles to Middlebury and secured employment as a cabinet 
maker in the shop of Nahum Parker, where he remained for a year. 
At the end of this time he abandoned Middlebury and entered the 
shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton at Brandon. At the end of another 
year ill health compelled him to abandon this kind of employment. 
Then followed his enrollment as a student at Brandon Academy, his 
avowed purpose being to prepare for a profession. He remained a 
student at this institution for about a year. 

Wedding bells rang in another change in Douglas's fortunes. 
This time his sister married and moved to Ontario County, New 
York. Their mother, who married the father of her daughter's hus- 
band, Gehazi Granger, soon followed. Thither Douglas went, resum- 
ing his studies at the Canandaigua Academy. He was now seventeen 
years old and showed proficiency in Latin and Greek, took a prominent 
part in literary societies and distinguished himself in debate. Here 
he became an ardent defender of Democracy, an apt pupil in practical 
politics. His lively inquisitiveness marked him from his comrades. 
His remarkable talents were displayed in a capacity to acquire learning 
by indirection as much as from the books. It was apparent, too. 
tliat he had forensic gifts that were exceptional. 

In the spring of 1833, when he was twenty years old, against the 
remonstrance of his mother and other relatives, he started for the 
West, stopping first at Cleveland, where he suffered a long illness 
which prevented his entering the law office of Sherlock J. Andrews, 
Esq., who offered to take him as a student. The entreaties of friends 
could not persuade him, although broken with sickness, to return to 
the East. He had set his face westward and thither his destiny had 
decreed he should go. With but forty dollars left he began the jour- 
ney, visiting Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis, and at last arriving 
at Jacksonville. Morgan County, Illinois, with but thirty-seven cents 

82 



in his pocket, and nothing save his talent and ambition with which to 
begin life in the great West. 

Finding no employment at Jacksonville, he walked ten miles to 
Winchester, where he secured employment for three days as an 
auctioneer's clerk and earned six dollars. Through the assistance of 
a Vermonter, who was a storekeeper at Winchester, he obtained forty 
pupils, whom he taught for a term of three months, and earned funds 
with which to return to Jacksonville and establish himself in his 
profession. He read law, debated in lyceums and proved himself 
astonishingly well informed. 

In March, 1833, although not yet twenty-one years of age, he 
was admitted to the bar. Jacksonville was the county seat, the gather- 
ing place for country folk, a center of the political life of the com- 
munity. Here came to Douglas his first opportunity. It was of a 
political character and afforded an exhibition of his remarkable 
talents, his forensic powers and exact and definite knowledge of the 
history of his own country. From his early boyhood he had been an 
admirer of Andrew Jackson, and this admiration amounted to hero- 
worship. He had assisted at Brandon, as a boy, in tearing down 
the coffin handbills which were posted by Jackson's political opponents. 
Jackson embodied his highest ideal of a man, a general and a states- 
man. He was to Douglas the perfect representative of the Democratic 
party, with which he formed an early alliance and to which he clung 
throughout his life with a tenacity and love that at no time abated. 
In Jackson all the glories and virtues of the party were embodied and 
individualized. 

Just before Douglas was admitted to the bar Jackson had declared 
against the National Bank and withdrawn the government deposits. 
This act aroused his political opponents and brought consternation to 
the men of his own party. A mass meeting of all good Democrats was 
called at Jacksonville to take action on the question. Should they 
support or resist the administration? Resolutions had been prepared 
in endorsement of the President's course and these had been committed 
to a party leader of experience and ability to submit to the meeting. 
At the last moment, however, he demurred and to Douglas fell the 
task as well as the opportunity to introduce the measure. He pre- 
sented the resolutions and retired to hear the discussion. The leading 

8S 



opponent was a well known politician, of long acquaintance and high 
standing in Jacksonville. When he had finished, Douglas in an 
elaborate and convincing argument, eloquently expressed and embrac- 
ing all the knowledge which the question involved, had vanquished his 
opponent. So complete indeed was his victory that his antagonist left 
the hall before the speech was finished. The audience was carried by 
storm. In the demonstration that followed Douglas was borne from 
the meeting on the shoulders of his enthusiastic admirers. Years after- 
wards men in Jacksonville declared this was the greatest speech they 
had ever heard. He was then twenty-one. This triumph gave him 
the name of The Little Giant. 

In February, 1835, while still in his twenty-first year, Douglas 
was elected by the Legislature of Illinois state's attorney of the First 
Judicial District, over the able and experienced lawyer, John J. Hardin. 
A stripling of diminutive stature, scarcely five feet high, weighing less 
than a hundred pounds, this little man rode his circuit embracing many 
of the large counties of Illinois and found favor in the conduct of his 
first public office. Not one of his indictments was quashed ; his frank- 
ness disarmed ill-natured opponents, his generosity made friends. 
The members of the bar, at first skeptical of his learning and ability, 
found in him an efficient prosecutor and a formidable trial lawyer. 

In 1836, the twenty-third year of his age, he was foremost in 
effecting a party organization in Illinois, the first to organize and de- 
velop the machinery belonging to the successful administration of a 
great party. He advocated the first convention to choose delegates to 
national conventions as well as county, state and district. The same 
year he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois. Here he came in 
contact with a remarkable assembly of men, which afterwards fur- 
nished Governors, Congressmen and United States Senators and one 
President of the United States. At this session Douglas displayed 
genius for legislation which later made him celebrated in Congress. 
He earnestly advocated the completion of the Illinois and Michigan 
canals and improvement of the Illinois and Wabash Rivers by the 
state. He pleaded for two great railroads crossing Illinois, one from 
east to west and one from north to south, in aid of which he would 
pledge the credit of the state and meet the interest by sales of public 
lands. As chairman of the Committee on Petitions he reported ad- 

84 



versely to granting divorces by legislative acts and proposed a general 
measure on the subject, which became a law. 

At the close of this session — he was now twenty- four — he re- 
signed from the Legislature and was appointed by the President of 
the United States, to the office of Register of Public Lands at Spring- 
field. The following year he resigned this office to accept a nomination 
to Congress. In a lengthy canvass for this place he displayed excep- 
tional abilities as a campaigner and organizer throughout the thirty- 
four counties of the district. In the consolidation of the party he 
rallied to his standard a larger following than his most ardent sup- 
porters at first thought possible, but was unfortunate in being pitted 
against John T. Stewart, a man of established reputation and marked 
ability, who prevailed by a margin of less than fifty votes. 

Douglas now directed his attention to the law, in which he 
achieved success. No account of the great lawyers of Illinois of his 
time omits his name from the list. He was a skilful, able and success- 
ful advocate before the trial courts and his name is frequently seen 
in connection with important cases argued before the Supreme Court. 

In 1839, when he was twenty-six, he was made a member of the 
Sangamon County delegation to the State Convention ; then became 
chairman of the State Central Committee, and later manager of the 
Democratic campaign for Illinois. A year later he carried Illinois for 
Van Buren against General Harrison. In this campaign he entered 
fearlessly and eloquently into joint debates with men of national repu- 
tation. Governors and ex-Governors of states, who were brought to 
Illinois in defence of the Whig candidate, and proved himself their 
superior as a debater. During the year a further political honor came 
to him, — the appointment of Secretary of State of Illinois. 

When he was twenty-eight he was appointed Judge of the Supreme 
Court of Illinois, in which office for two years he administered justice 
impartially. He was at home on the bench, where his freedom from 
affectation, false dignity, his fairness and good nature commended him 
to the laity and the bar alike. As a Judge in the trial courts he was 
described, by way of dispatching business, as "a perfect steam engine 
in breeches." His decisions were rarely overruled. His opinions, 
written in cases heard by him and his associates on questions of law 



85 



while sitting as the Supreme Court, bear the stamp of excellent lawyer- 
ship. 

In 1842, when he was twenty-nine, he was one of the leading 
candidates before the Democratic caucus of his state for United States 
Senator. A year later he received a nomination for Congress. In the 
contest that followed, during which he addressed his constituents for 
forty successive days and nights on the issues of the campaign, he won 
by a majority of four hundred votes. We now see him about to be 
transplanted from the narrow field of his past political activities to 
the broad domain of national legislation, with its responsibilities and 
possibilities. In the two departments of this field of effort and honor 
he is destined to spend his remaining years of service. Here he is to 
stand in the front rank of his party, on the firing line and before the 
public gaze for eighteen years, and for a portion of the period as the 
most conspicuous American in public life. 

It is but ten years since he left Canandaigua for some place in 
the great West, he knew not what place, there to carve out a career. 
He had not in the meantime returned to the East, but on his way to 
Congress he visited friends at Canandaigua. What American, what 
Vermonter, is not moved by feelings of emotion and pride as he 
follows this remarkable man, who went forth unaided and alone, with- 
out friends or fortune or fame into a strange, new land, and in ten 
years came home to lay down at the feet of his proud mother such a 
succession of offices as it falls to the lot of few men to hold through- 
out the years of a long political life: State's Attorney of a great 
district in a large and important state, Register of a Federal Land 
Office, Secretary of State, Judge of the Supreme Court, and now a 
member of Congress. Add to these, if you please, his professional 
eminence and leadership of the great party to which he belonged in 
the state of his adoption. Has Vermont produced another who has 
achieved such distinction in so brief a time? There can be but one 
answer. If the inquiry is made nation-wide where can there be 
found a parallel to this? If it can be said by the skeptically inclined 
that this record was made possible only by shrewd politics on the part 
of Douglas and fortune, it can truthfully be declared that he dis- 
charged all these important trusts ably, honestly, fearlessly, and in 



86 



such a manner that each new duty entrenched him the more firmly in 
the favor of his constituents. 

Before we enter with him the halls of Congress let us inquire 
more carefully about him. We have caught but glimpses of him thus 
far as he rushed from office to office, resigning one to accept another, 
or retiring from office to make good in his profession, or devoting 
his energies to service, in behalf of party. What were the qualities 
that singled Douglas out from other remarkable men who were then 
in Illinois, a state then abounding in great men, and enabled him to 
outstrip them all in the race for political preferment? Allow me to 
draw a picture of him and then you may be able to answer my ques- 
tion and you will conclude, I am sure, that it was a combination of 
exceptional qualities that enabled him to win. His personality was 
winning, his temper elastic, his spirit fearless and ardent. His self 
confidence was unbounded. He possessed a surpassing energy of in- 
tellect and will. The intense activity of his mind and the quickness 
of its working made him a formidable debater. The resoluteness and 
energy with which he embarked in any cause that enlisted his 
sympathies and support carried him immediately to the front. His 
mind was fertile in resources. He was a master of logic. It must 
be confessed, too, that no one excelled him in sophistry and fallacy. 
If it is true that he could perceive more quickly than others the 
strength or weakness of an argument and could elucidate a point to 
his advantage, it is likewise true that he knew the art of beclouding 
it for his opponent. In the field of debate which resembled physical 
combat he had no equal. He had at ready command on all occasions 
a flow of terse, vigorous and pointed English, which gave no halting 
to his phrase. His words went straight at the mark, without the 
adornment of rhetoric or the aid of similes. He gathered his prece- 
dents from the history of his own country. He rarely employed a 
classical allusion and never quoted a line of poetry. Within the 
range of American history his knowledge was comprehensive, minute 
and critical. He was by nature an orator. He could lead a crowd, 
almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could have fired a 
mob to desperate deeds. He was a born leader of men. He had faith 
in his own fitness for leadership and dared to take its responsibilities. 
He never seems to have agonized over the choice of a path. He was 

87 



a devout believer in party platforms and principles and party organiza- 
tion. His creed embraced the principles of Jefferson and Jackson and 
these he held to be sufficient for the problems and emergencies of his 
political life. As a lawyer he mastered the main facts of his cases 
with the utmost facility and his mind went at once to the points that 
were sure to affect the decision. He had the skill and temper to 
manage men, knew how to conciliate opponents, to impress the 
thoughtful, and to manage all classes of people. He was industrious 
and energetic. He had a way of making his fellows like him. Of 
their own accord they put him forward. No one ever entered more 
readily into close personal relations with those whom he encountered. 
His maturity and easy manners were intensified by the smallness of 
his stature. His blue eyes and dark abundant hair heightened his 
physical charm and boyishness. His virility, his heavy-browed face, 
round and strong, and his finely formed and uncommonly large head 
gave him an appearance of intellectual power. His voice was a deep 
bass and had a great carrying power, by which he was able to reach 
vast multitudes. Each word distinctly uttered was projected out from 
his deep chest as if fired from a cannon. 

Such was Congressman-elect Douglas when he presented him- 
self for admission to the Congress of 1843. Naturally it was quite 
unaware of his unusual talents ; it did not know about his record in 
Illinois and it would not have cared had it known. Local records 
are not of much concern in Washington. Records have to be made 
there if they are to be of consequence, and few there are who are 
able to make them. President Tyler was presiding at the White 
House and General Jackson, though still alive, had retired from active 
politics and was spending his last days at the Hermitage. The House 
was considering the hackneyed theme of remitting the fine that had 
been imposed upon the General by Judge Hall of New Orleans for 
contempt of court in sending the Judge out of the city to a point 
where he could not interfere with the administration of martial law by 
the use of the writ of habeas corpus during the time the General 
was in command of the city. On the cessation of hostilities and the 
return of Judge Hall to the city he summoned General Jackson before 
him and imposed a fine of one thousand dollars for contempt in his 
treatment of the Judge and in disregard of the orders of his court. 



This was promptly paid. Each Congress had taken up the subject 
of remitting the fine, had argued it and had as many times voted it 
down. The usual fate apparently awaited the measure at this session 
for no very good reason could be assigned by anybody, as it seemed, 
why the fine should be returned. Jackson was again Douglas's oppor- 
tunity. Now was the time to strike another blow for his hero. Now 
was the time to rescue his idol from the disgrace which attached to 
the order of the court, and with the same boyish indignation with 
which he tore down the coffin handbills and the same enthusiasm with 
which he carried the resolutions at Jacksonville he came to the defence 
of the man whom he had always worshiped. The case had been 
fully, ably and eloquently argued by older members before Douglas 
took the floor, and it seemed as if he could add little but vehemence 
to what had been said. But stranger, though he was, he rushed to 
the defence of General Jackson, declaring that what had been done 
was necessary for the defence of New Orleans and so justifiable under 
the law, that the action of the judge was unjust, irregular and illegal, 
and without jurisdiction. Unhappily for himself a member interrupted 
Douglas by asking for precedents for such action as he advocated, 
whereupon Douglas instantly replied that he presumed that there could 
no case be found on record, or traced by tradition, where a fine imposed 
upon a general for saving his country at the expense of his life and 
reputation ever had been refunded but he would make this a precedent 
for future action. He argued that in times of war and desolation, in 
times of peril and disaster, it was the substance and not the shadow 
of things that should be considered. He envied not the feelings of 
the man who could calmly and coolly reason about the force of prece- 
dents and the tendency of examples in the fury of the war-cry when 
"booty and beauty" was the watchword. The man whose stoicism 
would enable him to philosophise under such circumstances would 
fiddle while the capitol was burning and laugh at the horror and 
anguish that attended the conflagration. The speech was absolutely 
convincing, the resolution was carried, the fine remitted, and Douglas's 
reputation at Washington was established. 

During the following August Douglas addressed a mass-meet- 
ing of Democrats who had assembled as delegates from many western 
states at Nashville. This was in connection with a speaking tour 

89 



which included St. Louis and numerous other points whither Douglas 
was sent by the Democratic Central Committee with gratifying success. 
Thus early had he acquired national fame as an orator. He was in 
demand in states remote from his own and before gatherings of 
national importance. It was while he was in attendance at the conven- 
tion at Nashville that he was brought face to face with Andrew 
Jackson who was living in retirement at the Hermitage. Thither, as 
to a Mecca, all good Democrats turned their faces after the convention 
and here Douglas received a welcome that warmed the cockles of his 
heart. When he was introduced to his hero, General Jackson raised 
his still brilliant eyes and gazed upon the countenance of his defender. 
Still retaining his hand, the General asked if he was the Mr. Douglas 
of Illinois who delivered a speech at the last session of Congress on 
the subject of the fine imposed on him for declaring martial law at 
New Orleans. Douglas modestly replied that he delivered a speech 
in the House of Representatives on that subject, whereupon the old 
warrior bade him to sit down beside him and proceeded to thank 
him, and remarked that he was the first man that had relieved his 
mind on a subject which had rested upon it for thirty years, that he 
was convinced in his own mind that he had not violated the laws or 
constitution of his country, but no one had found a legal justification 
until Douglas had pointed it out on the floor of Congress, where he 
had established it beyond the possibility of cavil or doubt. He dis- 
missed Douglas by telling him that he could go down to his grave in 
peace with the perfect consciousness that he had not broken the law. 
Douglas was speechless ; he could not reply, but convulsively shaking 
the aged veteran's hand, he rose and left the hall. 

When in 1844 Douglas had been returned to the House by an 
increased majority and its older members were timidly feeling their 
way, Douglas introduced a joint resolution for the annexation of 
Texas. During its pendency he proposed that the Missouri Compro- 
mise line of 36° 30" should be preserved as a settlement of the slavery 
question by extending it through the new territory. A similar measure 
later became a law. In his speech on this question he declared that 
honor and violated faith required the immediate annexation of Texas. 
This speech was not equalled by any of the other elaborate speeches 
made upon that subject. Alexander H. Stevens brought the slavery 

90 



question into the case and he and a group of Southern associates re- 
fused to accept any terms of annexation which did not secure the right 
of the states formed from the territory annexed south of the Missouri 
Compromise Hne to come into the Union with slavery if they desired. 
Douglas replied that such states should be admitted into the Union 
with or tvithout slavery as the people in each should determine at the 
time of their application to Congress for admission. This proposition 
is of great personal and historical interest, for it appears to be the 
first statement by Douglas of the theory of popular sovereignty which 
became the fundamental principle with him for the settlement of the 
slavery question. Northern men demurred to this proposition. Doug- 
las saved the situation by an amendment which provided that in such 
states as should be formed out of Texas north of the Missouri line 
slavery should not exist, and as thus amended, the joint resolution 
passed. Texas included at this time a part of what is now New 
Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma. 

The question of the northwest boundary became a political issue 
at this time. It was coupled with the Texas question in the Demo- 
cratic platform of 1844. Douglas was an enthusiastic expansionist 
and so gave his powerful aid to both propositions. He would make 
the re-occupation of Oregon the Democratic slogan. He tried to im- 
press on the public mind the importance of this vast territory of which 
then little was known. He claimed that this territory stretched from 
42° north latitude to 54° 40" north latitude. The treaties between 
Russia and Great Britain and between Russia and the United States 
had fixed the southern boundary of Russian territory on the continent 
at 54° 40", and a treaty between the United States and Spain had 
fixed the 42nd parallel as the northern boundary of the Spanish posses- 
sions, and a joint treaty between Great Britain and the United States 
had established the manner of occupancy of this territory which might 
be terminated by either party on twelve months' notice. The United 
States and Great Britain were competitors for the territory between 
Russian and Spanish lines. Douglas made a strong argument for 
our claims to all this territory on the ground that we were occupying 
and possessing the Mississippi valley and the Great West which was 
adjacent to the territory in dispute. In furtherance of this idea he 
proposed the establishment of the territory of Alaska and Oregon to 

91 



protect the commerce of the United States with New Mexico and 
California, as well as emigration to Oregon. This failed to attract 
serious attention at the time but is interesting as a forerunner of what 
was to come. When at a later time the committee on territories re- 
ported a bill, boldly extending the government of the United States 
over the whole of the area in dispute, and the opposition in derision 
referred to the emigration thither as "wandering and unsettled" Doug- 
las was quickly on his feet declaring that he would never yield an inch 
to Great Britain or any other government on the question of territory. 
He looked forward to the time when Oregon would become a consider- 
able member of the Great American Family. He was for erecting 
a government on this side of the Rockies, extending over settlements 
under military rule, and then of establishing the territorial govern- 
ment of Oregon. As for Great Britain he would assert our rights 
to the last inch and then if war came, let it come. He would admin- 
ister Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity and would not terminate the 
war until the question of boundary was settled forever. He would 
make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself and would 
not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here. An ocean-bound 
republic was his dream. He would not be satisfied while Great 
Britain held one acre on the northwest coast of America. He main- 
tained that the great point at issue between us and Great Britain was 
for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China and Japan, 
and of the East Indies and for the maritime ascendency of all these 
waters. President Polk compromised with Great Britain by estab- 
lishing the boundary at 49° north latitude, much against the wishes 
of Douglas, who maintained that had we been firm in our demands we 
would have held all that vast territory on the Pacific Ocean to the 54th 
degree of north latitude, so celebrated in our day as the great wheat- 
growing section of Canada. We would have likewise controlled the 
coast with its harbors. But the Mexican war was at hand and we 
could not be involved in trouble with two nations at one time. 

In 1845, on the opening of the session of Congress, Douglas was 
appointed chairman of the committee on territories. He was thirty- 
two years old. It was at a time when the territorial questions were 
of vast importance. This subject engaged his best talents and enlisted 
his enthusiastic interest. In this department of his public service he 

92 



rose to the zenith of his power, and here likewise he took the step 
that brought his poHtical defeat. But it was his fate to report the 
bills by which six of the states of our union were admitted into the 
great sisterhood and seven of the territories were organized. 

In 1845 Texas was admitted into the Union on an equal footing 
with the original states in all respects whatsoever. Douglas reported 
from his committee a joint resolution in this regard, his first act as 
chairman of the committee on territories. His success at Washing- 
ton had naturally led to his re-election in 1846. In the same year 
President Polk announced that war with Mexico existed, and told 
Douglas, who was now thirty-three, that he could lead the Demo- 
cratic party in the House of Representatives if he chose to do so. 
The venerable Whig statesman, John Quincy Adams, "old man elo- 
quent," as he was called, was then and for a long time theretofore 
had been the leader in that branch of the national legislature. Mr. 
Adams had had a distinguished public career. His father was the 
second President of the United States. Mr. Adams was educated at 
Harvard and fitted for the law. Early in life his political fortunes 
begun. He represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate 
while he was still a young man. Retiring from this office he devoted 
his great learning to the work of an instructor in Harvard College. 
Later he represented this country in several of the great courts of 
Europe. He was Secretary of State under President Monroe and 
the author of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1824 he became President 
but was unable to defeat General Jackson as a candidate for re-election 
in 1828. Had his career ended here he would not have left a great 
name, but entering the House after his retirement from the presi- 
dency, contrary to all precedents before or since he rounded out a 
career of such distinction and honor as has seldom fallen to the lot of 
any statesman. For almost two decades he led his party on the floor 
of the lower house where he literally died in the harness. Able, cul- 
tured, experienced in the affairs of government and highly trained in 
the arts of a debater, he was a formidable antagonist. Moreover he 
was bitterly opposed to the Mexican war for the reason that he be- 
lieved it would result in the addition of slave territory to the Union 
and would give the slave-holding states a numerical advantage. It 
was against an opponent thus formidable that Douglas was arrayed 

S3 



when he took the floor to pass an appropriation for the prosecution 
of the war which President Folk had reported was begun. Our 
justification lay in the fact, if such it was, that we had title to that 
tract of land lying between the Neuces River and the Rio Grande in 
the State of Texas. The President had ordered General Taylor, 
whose troops were on the east of the Neuces to take a position between 
that river and the Rio Grande, and upon doing so the Mexicans made 
an attack and blood was shed. If we owned the land where this oc- 
curred then we were rightfully at war with Mexico, but if not we 
were invaders without right on the territory of another country. The 
question was an important one not only from immediate consequences 
but from those that were remote and such as bore on the acquisition 
of territory. Douglas claimed that the catalogue of aggressions and 
insults, of outrages on our national flag — on persons and property of 
our citizens — of the violation of our treaty stipulations, and the mur- 
der, robbery and imprisonment of our countrymen, in themselves 
would have furnished a just cause for the war. But referring to the 
question of title he maintained with characteristic energy and positive- 
ness that the Republic of Texas held the country on the left bank of 
the Rio Grande by virtue of a successful revolution. The United 
States had received Texas as a state with all her territory and had no 
right to surrender any part of it. The right to hold the territory be- 
tween the two rivers named was based on the treaty made with Gen- 
eral Santa Anna after the battle of San Jacinto, which acknowledged 
the independence of Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as its 
boundary. At this point the aged Massachusetts statesman inter- 
rupted the new leader of the democracy by the inquiry, "Has not that 
treaty with Santa Anna been since discarded by the Mexican Govern- 
ment?" "I presume it has," replied Douglas, "for I am not aware of 
any treaty or compact which that government ever entered into that 
has not either been violated or repudiated by them afterwards." Santa 
Anna as recognized dictator, so Douglas claimed, was the de facto 
government and his acts were binding on Mexico. Forthwith Texas 
had established counties beyond the Neuces and extended her juris- 
diction over the territory to the Rio Grande which Mexico had 
recognized as the boundary, and the United States had extended the 
revenue laws over the same country — the country where the Ameri- 

04 



can soldiers had been slain. Mr. Adams followed Douglas with the 
keenest interest and repeatedly interrupted him as he advanced in his 
argument so that the latter, almost insensibly, addressed his remarks 
to Mr. Adams. They were in striking contrast, the aged New Eng- 
land statesman and the young westerner. By a series of questions 
Douglas had made Mr. Adams declare that the western boundary of 
Texas was the Neuces and not the Rio Grande. When he had his an- 
tagonist committed to this position so firmly that it could not be es- 
caped, Douglas produced and read a telegram by Mr. Adams to Don 
Onis, the Spanish minister, written in 1819, when he was Secretary 
of State, in connection with the cession of the Floridas to us and the 
relinquishment by us of any title west of the Sabine and Red Rivers, 
in which he said, "Our title to the Rio Grande is as clear as to the 
Island of New Orleans." To this Mr. Adams replied that he wrote the 
dispatch as Secretary of State and made out as good a case as he could 
for his country, but he denied that he claimed that the line followed 
the river to the full length. To this Douglas answered that he had 
heard of the line to which the gentleman referred and it followed a 
river more than a hundred miles above Matamoras. Consequently, 
taking the gentleman on his own claim, the position occupied by Gen- 
eral Taylor and every inch of ground upon which an American soldier 
had planted his foot was within our own territory as claimed by him in 
1819. The veteran statesman was worsted and the House was divided 
between admiration for the new actor on the national stage and the 
retiring statesman. 

While Douglas' fame was constantly rising in the House and his 
reputation at home was bringing increased majorities on each election 
to the lower House, in January, 1847, he was elected a United States 
senator. For six years he had been a potential candidate for this of- 
fice. Immediately upon taking his seat in the Senate he was appointed 
chairman of the Committee on Territories. This was a position of 
the utmost importance. It was the very storm center of politics. Every 
question of territorial organization touched the peculiar interests of 
the South. The varying questions of public opinion crossed in this 
committee. 

In 1848 he made his fi.rst important speech in the Senate on the 
Mexican war, defending the course of the administration. Soon a 

95 



Mexican treaty was submitted in which provision was made that the 
boundary line estabHshed should be religiously respected by each of 
the two republics and no change ever made therein except by the con- 
sent of both nations. This, he claimed, violated a great principle of 
public policy in relation to this continent; it pledged the faith of this 
republic that succeeding generations should not do that which duty 
to the interests and honor of the country in the progress of events 
might compel them to do. Being an ardent expansionist and be- 
lieving that the limits of this country should be as wide as possible he 
opposed any treaty restrictions that would tie our hands. In this 
course he was consistent at all times. A striking illustration is af- 
forded in case of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with Great Britain. Doug- 
las saw the importance not only of our building the canal across the 
isthmus but of our right to control it, and in this he was half a century 
ahead of the other American statesmen. He opposed the provisions of 
the treaty because they would hinder and embarrass us should we en- 
ter on the work of building the canal. Looking to a great future, 
which he said he was not impatient about, he inquired of his fellow 
senators how long' it would be before it would be necessary for this 
country to construct the canal. When this was done American citizens 
would settle along its line and it would be necessary to protect them 
by the establishment of American principles and institutions. Hence 
he was unwilling to adopt that clause in the treaty guaranteeing that 
neither party would ever "annex, colonize, or occupy any portion of 
Central America." Before we could enter into negotiations or turn 
a shovel in the direction of building the Panama canal, the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty, against the blighting effect of which Douglas warned 
his countrymen half a century ago, the ratification of which he op- 
posed, had to be abrogated. The provisions of the treaty were en- 
tirely out of harmony with the authority which the United States must 
exercise over the canal zone. With tact, courage and ability John Hay, 
as Secretary of State, succeeded in negotiating with Great Britain the 
Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty 
and left us free to build and control the Panama canal. 

We come now to the most interesting part in the life of Senator 
Douglas, and whatever diversity of opinion may exist as to him there 
can be no question about the importance of his career. During the 

96 



next ten years he was the very storm-center of national events and 
if he failed to see the right, as a later and wiser generation has 
viewed it, there can be no denial that he carried his part with con- 
summate ability, and he should be credited with high and patriotic mo- 
tives in his leadership in the establishment of the legislation for popular 
sovereignty. On the conclusion of peace with Mexico, that nation be- 
ing too poor to pay a war indemnity, it ceded to this country what was 
then known as California and New Mexico, out of which these two 
and the following states have been carved: Nevada, Arizona, Utah 
and part of Colorado and Wyoming. This area stretched westward 
from Texas to the Pacific. The northwest boundary had been estab- 
lished and all that territory was ours then known as Oregon, including 
the present states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, as was likewise 
the northwest territory, out of which have been created the states of 
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and North and South Dakota. There, 
too, was the Territory of Nebraska, which was afterwards divided into 
the states of Kansas and Nebraska. From a tier of states which 
bordered the Mississippi on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west 
there was a great country in which there was no efficient government 
or organization, save such as resulted from the Mormon settlement. 
From his position of chairman of the Committee on Territories, it be- 
came the duty of Senator Douglas, as it was his high ambition, to 
direct the legislation which should lead to the political organization of 
this great territory embracing geographically half of the United States. 
It was sparsely settled. It had no roads. The presence of the In- 
dian added to the dangers and hardships of exploitation. Not much 
was known of a large part of this section. Gold had been discovered 
in California and emigrants were anxious to go by land, as well as 
water, to this field of opportunity. The difficulties of organization 
would have been formidable enough to have challenged the ability 
of the ablest statesman had not the question of the extension of terri- 
tory been tangled fast with the question of the extension of slavery. 
The balance of power until now had been preserved between the slave- 
holding and free states by a rule which admitted no free state unless 
a slave state accompanied it into the Union. To keep up this fine 
balance was the task which the south imposed on the statesmen who 
were charged with the legislation for the organization of new states 



97 



and territories. Modern inventions and the growing demand for cot- 
ton throughout the world had made slave labor profitable. The slave 
holdings amounted to a vast capitalization and it was in the interest of 
the investors in this kind of property that the field for slave labor 
should be as large as possible. To this end they looked to new terri- 
tory for its employment. In the broad new field now about to be 
organized into states and territories they hoped that the old rule would 
still find favor for preserving the balance of power, and that the 
new country would furnish to their cherished institution opportunities 
for expansion and profit. Slavery was a powerful force in the na- 
tional councils and one that had to be reckoned with in all legislation 
affecting it. Douglas had met with scant support when he proposed 
before this to organize Oregon. In the Northwest Territory slavery 
was prohibited by the ordinance of 1787. All this territory was, 
moreover, north of the Missouri Compromise line. The Wilmot pro- 
viso, which was pending for several years but finally failed of passage, 
provided that slavery should be prohibited in the territory acquired as 
a result of the Mexican conquest. The Missouri Compromise for- 
bade slavery in the territory acquired by the Louisiana purchase north 
and west of the State of Missouri, 36° 30' north latitude, but admitted 
Missouri as a slave state. 

Senator Douglas although succeeding in passing an act extending 
the Missouri line westward across the State of Texas was not success- 
ful in a similar effort to extend the line to the Pacific Ocean. On the 
fourth attempt to provide a territorial government for Oregon he was 
only successful after much turmoil and an exhausting session of Con- 
gress. This move was bitterly opposed by the southern members for 
the reason that the restrictive clause, borrowed from the Ordinance 
of 1787, against slavery, having been embraced in the bill, they were 
fearful of the consequences of the precedent thus established. The 
final act was identical with the one Douglas had introduced in the 
House. 

In 1848 Cass was nominated by the Democratic party for the 
presidency and General Taylor received the nomination of the Whig 
convention. The result of the election favored the Whigs and Gen- 
eral Taylor became president but he died a short time after his in- 
auguration and was succeeded by the vice-president, Millard Fillmore. 

»s 



At the session of Congress held in 1848 Douglas proposed to admit 
both California and New Mexico as one state. It is likely he wanted 
to avoid raising the specter of slavery. If California could come at 
once into the Union she could create her own institutions. This was 
a forcible application of the principle of popular sovereignty. Polk's 
cabinet, while admitting the plan to be ingenious, did not lend its aid. 
The president wanted a bill drafted for the admission of New Mexico 
separately but Douglas refused. The bill which Douglas had drawn 
was not submitted to his committee but to the judiciary committee of 
which four out of five were southerners. They reported adversely and 
the bill failed. Several further unsuccessful attempts were made by 
Senator Douglas at this session to admit California and New Mexico. 
Finally in despair he exclaimed, addressing the president of the Senate, 
"Sir, if we wish to settle this question of slavery let us banish the 
agitation from these halls. Let the people of such states settle the 
question of slavery within their limits, as they would settle the ques- 
tion of banking, or any other domestic institution, according to their 
own will." Congress failed to pass any bill and California was left 
to its own devices. 

When Congress assembled in 1849 the Union was in peril. Never 
since 1821, when the Missouri Compromise was passed, had there been 
such alarm for the safety of the republic. Slavery was knocking for 
admission to the new territory and its opponents were resisting its ap- 
proach. In this unsettled and unhappy condition of affairs Clay, the 
great Whig statesman and orator, heard the call of his distracted 
country and came forth from his retirement at Ashland to lend his aid 
and counsel in the settlement of present difificulties. Webster, too, 
the great New England statesman, was in the Senate, as were Calhoun 
and Cass and Benton and many another statesman whose name had 
been or was destined to become famous in the Senate. It was as dis- 
tinguished a body of men as had been assembled since the days of the 
American Revolution. It contained the three greatest statesmen this 
country has ever known. Douglas had introduced two bills, one for 
the admission of California as a free state and one for the organiza- 
tion of Utah and New Mexico without any restriction as to slavery. 
On the coming of Clay, out of respect for his great wisdom and 
leadership, the question growing out of the slavery agitation and em- 

99 



braced in the organization of the new territory were submitted to a 
committee of thirteen, of which he was made chairman. Clay came 
forward with the following compromise: 

First: To admit California with a free constitution. 

Second: To organize territorial governments in the region ac- 
quired from Mexico without any restriction as to slavery. 

Third : To settle the question of the boundary of Texas and the 
debt due her on a fair basis. 

Fourth: To prohibit slave trade, but not slavery, in the District 
of Columbia. 

Fifth: To provide more carefully for the return of fugitive 
slaves. 

This compromise was carried out during the latter part of the 
session only after the most strenuous efforts on the part of its friends. 
On an examination of the bills for the admission of California and 
the organization of Utah and New Mexico, drawn by Senator Doug- 
las, Clay found that they could not be improved but hesitated about 
using them in his committee as this would seem unfair to Douglas. 
The latter was most generous and received the gracious thanks of 
Clay for the course he pursued in this regard. These bills were fast- 
ened together by a wafer and presented in what was known as the 
Omnibus Bill. No changes were made in the bills. Douglas, who was 
a careful politician, was opposed to the joining of the two measures, 
for the reason that the friends of one would not be the friends of the 
other and both bills might fail. A protracted and exhausting contest 
ensued in which the question was debated by the great men then in 
the Senate. Clay himself made his last speech. For two days he 
pleaded with his fellow senators and with his divided countrymen. 
Webster made his seventh of March speech to the rage and sorrow of 
New England, for he supported the compromise measures. He made 
but one speech after this in the Senate. Calhoun was too ill to ap- 
pear in person and his speech was read by Senator Mason. He died 
soon after. Both he and Senator Davis upon whom his mantle fell 
opposed the compromise on the ground that slavery in the territories 
was guaranteed by the Federal constitution. Chase and Seward op- 
posed the measure because they thought it looked to the extension of 
slavery. Cass was for it and Benton against it. The debate was one 

100 



of the most notable in the history of the country. It involved in the 
discussion the old leaders and the new men of the Senate, but no one 
except Clay himself had such a part in the settlement as Doug- 
las. Late in the summer after Clay had been exhausted and had 
retired, all but the part relating to Utah was stricken out and with 
that single passenger the Omnibus went through the Senate. Then 
Douglas promptly brought forward his bill for the admission of Cali- 
fornia and it was passed. The bill fixing the boundary of Texas was 
presented and passed. Then Douglas brought up his bill for the or- 
ganization of New Mexico and it was passed. A more stringent slave 
law was adopted and the slave trade in the District of Columbia was 
abolished. By the middle of September the work of the important 
session was at an end. The great principle had been established in the 
language of Senator Douglas that "the people could form and regulate 
their own internal concerns and institutions in their own way." Sena- 
tor Davis, with whom Douglas had been in frequent debate over the 
measures, declared that if anyone had a right to be proud of the suc- 
cess of the measures it was the senator from Illinois. 

When Douglas returned to Chicago, to which city he had removed 
in 1847, he found an aroused and maddened populace. The passage 
of the fugitive slave law was the cause of the uprising. The Chicago 
Common Council had passed resolutions the night previous condemn- 
ing the act as in violation of the constitution and the laws of God and 
calling upon the officers of the law to disregard it. A mass meeting 
was about to pass resolutions approving this extraordinary action of 
the council and denouncing as traitors the senators and representa- 
tives who had voted for the law, when Douglas walked upon the stand 
and announced that the next evening he would publicly defend the 
measures of compromise, and demanded to be heard before he was 
condemned. He had an audience such as had never before assembled 
in Chicago, including two-thirds of the voters of the city. His de- 
fence was bold, skilful, successful. He avowed his authorship of three 
of the measures and his approval of the others. He took them up 
one by one, explained them to his constituents and in answer to re- 
peated questions argued out and elucidated the whole subject. At the 
end of his extraordinary address he proposed and carried resolutions 
pledging the meeting to stand by the constitution and the laws, and 

101 



calling upon the council to repudiate its action. The next night the 
council met and repealed the offensive resolutions. Douglas' triumph 
had been complete. 

President Fillmore signed the compromise act and it became a 
law. The Legislature of Illinois passed resolutions in its favor and 
the lower House of Congress, by a good majority, a little more than a 
year later voted that the compromise measures should be regarded as 
a permanent settlement. The two great parties, Whig and Demo- 
cratic, in the conventions of 1852 endorsed the measures by party 
platforms, and Rufus Choate, the leader of the New England bar 
and the spokesman of the Whig convention, indulged in a hyperbole 
as he exclaimed "With what instantaneous and mighty charm they 
calmed the madness and anxiety of the hour !" 

Unhappily for Senator Douglas the slavery question was not set- 
tled by the compromise of 1850 but was destined to be brought for- 
ward still more formidably in 1854, when he again sought to organize 
Nebraska. The need for immediate organization seemed imperative. 
The territory promised a fair field for settlement, and organization 
meant a safer passage for those emigrants who would go to the re- 
gion farther west. It would have a further effect, too, in the set- 
tlement of Oregon. Something had to be done in organization of the 
intervening territory. Nebraska was almost a passion with Douglas. 
As early as 1844 he had proposed a territorial government for the 
region, had introduced a second bill in 1848 and a third in 1852, all 
of which were designed to prepare the way for a settled government. 
The proposition to settle this area had not been favored by the south- 
ern representatives who declared that "new swarms should not leave 
the old hives." They (Jid not care for its organization unless it was 
opened to slavery. It was unlike California, Utah and New Mexico 
which came to us as a result of the Mexican conquest. It came to 
us by the Louisiana purchase and being north of the Missouri line 
slavery was prohibited therein. But the prohibition was by act of 
Congress and Congress might either directly or by implication undo its 
act and make slavery lawful in the new territory. In 1853 another 
bill for the organization of Nebraska was introduced in the Senate and 
a bill to admit the Territory of Washington was passed, but the Ne- 
braska bill hung fire. In December of this year a fifth bill was intro- 

102 



duced to organize Nebraska, similar to the one introduced at the last 
session, and the same was referred to the committee of which Senator 
Douglas was chairman. While this bill was pending certain newspapers 
which were supposed to voice the sentiments of Senator Douglas pre- 
dicted that Nebraska would be organized on the same basis as Utah 
and New Mexico, and that the climate, nature and necessary pursuits 
of the people, who would occupy the territory, would establish its 
status as free territory. 

It was apparent that some way to conciliate the south must be 
found before Nebraska could be organized. Already one of the sena- 
tors from Missouri had announced that the organization would be op- 
posed unless the Missouri Compromise was repealed. In January, 
1854, a report was made to the Senate, recommending that the section 
of the compromise relating to slavery be declared null and void. A 
substitute measure provided that when states were admitted into the 
Union they should be received with or without slavery as their con- 
stitution declared at the time of admission. This had been the way 
with California. A further provision left the people of a territory free 
to decide whether slavery should exist or not before the organization 
of a state government. This was a principle which Senator Douglas 
claimed for Utah and New Mexico. The opinion that Senator Doug- 
las wanted to open Nebraska to slavery, which was rather widely en- 
tertained at the time, was not well founded and search will be made in 
vain for either speech or act to justify such a conclusion. In fair- 
ness to the great statesman it ought to be admitted at this day that he 
did not so believe and that the conclusion was unwarranted. Four 
years previously he had declared that the prairies were dedicated 
to freedom by a law above human power to repeal ; that the climate, 
topography and the condition of slave labor all forbade slavery in the 
unoccupied areas of the West. 

When Senator Dixon, in January, 1854, offered an amendment 
to the Nebraska bill with an express stipulation that slavery might 
exist in the territory as though the compromise had not been passed. 
Senator Douglas was reluctant to take so radical a position, although 
he had declared that the compromise was no longer of practical force, 
as the acts of 1850 had established another principle for the govern- 
ment of territory north of the Missouri line. Not without serious 

103 



misgivings, however, and the contemplation of the momentous con- 
sequences that would attach to such a course did Senator Douglas 
finally agree to support the measure. But he knew that the repeal 
was consistent with his theory of popular sovereignty and with its 
adoption that great principle could have broad application. It was 
the same principle, as he claimed, that was expressed in the acts ad- 
mitting Utah and New Mexico. On the 7th of February he proposed 
an amendment to the pending bill which provided that inasmuch as 
the Missouri Compromise was inconsistent with the principle of non- 
intervention it was declared inoperative and void, it being the true 
intent and meaning of the act not to legislate slavery into any territory 
or state nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. 
Thus was the doctrine of popular sovereignty engrafted upon the 
federal law. 

The discussion and events that attended the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act, for it had been decided to make two territories out of 
Nebraska, were by far the most important and disastrous in Douglas's 
career. The great senators, Webster, Clay, Calhoun had passed from 
the scene and Douglas was left the most able, aggressive and con- 
spicuous debater in the Senate. He had succeeded Clay as the great 
compromiser. He was in full command of the pending legislation. 
The Senate was not then lacking in other great men, for the vital 
importance and absorbing interest of the slavery question, if no other 
cause, had sent to the highest law-making body at Washington an 
array of talent such as has rarely been assembled there in any other 
era of our national life. Chase of Ohio, Seward of New York, 
Sumner and Everett of Massachusetts, were among the most con- 
spicuous members from the northern states but to those could be 
added many others that were well known in all parts of the country. 
The best men of the South were naturally on duty, too, in the Senate. 
Sumner, Chase and Seward attacked Douglas with all the great ability 
at their command and in elaborate and set speeches sought to over- 
come him in debate. The issue seemed so certain that he preferred 
not to speak on the bill but his friends prevailed on him to close the 
debate, as it was his right to do as chairman of the committee. Long 

104 



before the hour arrived for him to address the Senate all available 
space for visitors was taken by an eager and expectant throng who had 
gathered to hear the exponent of popular sovereignty close the debate. 
For hours he attracted the admiration of his hearers who gave him 
frequent applause as he upheld his position against the combined 
assault of the abolition Senators. No one attacked him during this 
speech unless it was to the discomfiture of the Senator interrupting 
him, and as often as he returned to the discussion of the issue, after 
an interruption, he left the impression that these highly moral men, 
who were armed with a just cause, were culprits and he their inquisitor, 
and so genuine and commanding was his eloquence and so able his 
argument, that even Seward, on begging for an interruption in order 
that he might make an explanation, said, "I have never had so much 
respect for him as I have tonight." While the bill passed the Senate 
by a large majority the vote was closer in the House. Douglas took 
charge of the contest in the House, in so far as generalship and advice 
were concerned, and by May the bill passed and received the President's 
signature. 

The passage of this measure created the greatest opposition and 
excitement throughout the North. But a handful of northern repre- 
sentatives who voted for the measure were returned at the next election. 
It meant to this portion of our land the unlocking of the doors to the 
admission of slavery to the unoccupied prairies of the West. To 
Douglas it had no such meaning. He looked upon the legislation as 
opening the way for the practical operation of a rule by which the 
slavery question would be banished from the halls of Congress to 
become a local question in each state and territory. Here the people, 
who were as intelligent as he and as moral and as much accountable 
to man and God, could determine what place, if any, the institution 
of slavery should have, and adopting it as an institution could make 
the necessary laws for its protection. It was thus made a matter of 
local option. The local inhabitants could have it or reject it. He 
would have them entirely responsible for all laws relative to master 
and slave as they were for the laws governing the relation of parent 
and child, husband and wife, guardian and ward and master and 
servant. 



105 



When Douglas returned to his home from the scene of his fatal 
triumph he found the flags at half-mast and the bells were tolling. 
He announced to his constituents that he would address them on the 
subject of the Kansas-Nebraska bill on the following night and he 
looked forward to such a triumph as had accompanied his speech 
on the compromise of 1850. But there was trouble everywhere, his 
personal friends turned away, the rank and file of his party were in 
distrust. For more than two hours he stood before an angry mob 
and tried to silence them so that he might speak but it was of no avail. 
The die was cast. The meeting had been organized for just such a 
result by the Abolitionists of Chicago. Moreover, it w^as in part 
armed in the expectation of the use of force. Had Douglas appeared 
with a similar organization, as it was whispered he would do, blood- 
shed would have been inevitable. Indignation was at high-water mark 
and nothing but the coolness and fearlessness of the great Senator 
prevented an outbreak. As it was he was assaulted on his way to his 
hotel and escaped with difficulty. It was found out presently that the 
spirit of the Chicago mob was abroad over the whole North, and 
Douglas afterwards said that at this time he could have ridden from 
Boston to Chicago by the light of his burning effigies. 

Whatever force there was to his argument, and that of Webster 
in his speech of the seventh of March, that climate and natural condi- 
tions would determine where slavery would exist, and of that other 
argument, that whatever the right or wrong of the question was, the 
local inhabitants were the proper parties on whom the duty fell to 
decide, Douglas, if he was moved at all by politic considerations, had 
failed to gauge from a sentimental point of view, the almost religious 
depth of the anti-slavery feeling in that very stock from which he had 
himself sprung. He was not a slave holder and never had been. 
His first wife, a Southern woman of rare charm and culture, was the 
daughter of a slave holder and upon her death the Douglas children 
became the owners of a plantation with slaves. But Douglas himself 
never had any interest in any slave property, although his father-in- 
law, Colonel Martin, desired to bestow a portion of his estate upon 
him, thus giving him the control of a certain number of slaves. This 
Douglas declined and refused to have anything to do with the owner- 
ship of slaves. 

io« 



The result of the campaign of 1856 was the election of Buchanan 
as President. The Republican party was organized and its first ticket 
was in the field. Its essential policy was opposition to the extension 
of slavery. It was bitterly opposed to the act of 1854, for this legisla- 
tion meant, as the party viewed it, the extension of slavery. The 
signs, as read from this quarter, were unmistakable. If slavery were 
to find a home in any of the new territory it was agreed that Kansas 
presented the most hopeful field. It became the pivotal point in the 
contest between freedom and slavery. It was agreed that Nebraska 
was not inviting territory for the institution. Events came in rapid 
succession. On the 4th of March, 1857, Buchanan was inaugurated, 
a Democrat and a representative of southern interests. Two days 
later the Supreme Court of the United States decided the Dred Scott 
case, in which the court held that a negro descended from slave parents 
was not a citizen and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitu- 
tional. This opinion was in harmony with the opinion entertained by 
Southern statesmen, that before the organization of a state govern- 
ment slavery was guaranteed in the territories by the Federal Constitu- 
tion. If this was true what became of the theory of popular 
sovereignty? If the constitution protected slavery in the territories 
how could the inhabitants thereof either "vote it down or vote it up?" 
This was the crucial question in the great debate between Douglas 
and Lincoln in 1858. The question here as propounded by Lincoln 
was, "Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way 
against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery 
from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution?" This 
question and Douglas's answer have been credited with having de- 
termined the fate of Douglas and his party in 1860. The answer 
was in the affirmative. Douglas declared that slavery could not exist 
except by the protection of local laws and as these must reflect local 
sentiment, if the inhabitants of a territory wished to exclude slavery 
they could pass such laws as would make its existence impossible. 
It is a mistake to suppose that Douglas was forced to answer this 
question hurriedly or in a manner other than according to his settled 
convictions and carefully thought-out opinion. As early as June, 1857, 
he had given his opinion on the Dred Scott decision, as it related to 
popular sovereignty, by affirming that while the right continued in full 

107 



force under the constitution and could not be divested or alienated by 
an act of Congress it would necessarily, nevertheless, remain a barren 
and worthless right unless sustained, protected and enforced by appro- 
priate police regulations, and local legislation prescribing adequate 
remedies for its violation, which would necessarily depend upon the 
will and wishes of the people of the territory. 

We are about to see the principle of popular sovereignty in prac- 
tical operation. Kansas becomes the center of interest. Its popula- 
tion had been greatly augmented by the efforts of the emigrant aid 
societies, which had sent great numbers into Kansas to make it a free 
state, and by the efforts of the slave holders in Missouri, who had 
sent thither a large representation of pro-slavery voters. A good 
many of the latter did not become permanent residents of the proposed 
state, their mission being to establish Kansas as a slave state and 
then to return to Missouri. The pro-slavery party called what is 
known in history as the Lecompton convention. This convention 
proceeded to adopt a slave constitution and with it knocked for ad- 
mission to the Union. The free-state party took no part in the 
election of delegates to this convention because the election was based 
on a defective census and registration. It was furthermore promised 
by the federal authorities that a submission should be made to a 
popular vote of any constitution which the prospective convention 
might adopt. Some months after the Lecompton convention was 
held the free-state party abandoned its policy of not participating in 
local elections, and voting for a territorial Legislature, the result was 
a decisive free state victory. It was thus apparent that though the 
pro-slavery party could make such a constitution as they liked, the 
free state party could vote it down. The question in the first place 
was, did the Lecompton convention represent the choice of the voters 
of Kansas, and in the second place should the vote taken be accepted 
as the final test for the admission of the state, or should the constitu- 
tion be submitted to the people for ratification or rejection? When 
the results of the constitutional convention became known it turned 
out that not the whole of the constitution was to be submitted to 
a popular vote but only the part relating to slavery. The people 
might vote for the constitution with slavery or without slavery. In 
either event the constitution would be approved. But should the free 

lOS 



state party succeed, then a provision still guaranteed the right of 
property in slaves then in the territory, and further provided if it 
was amended after 1864, that no alteration should be made to affect 
the rights of property in slaves. Douglas was stirred to the depths 
by the proposition of President Buchanan to submit the Lecompton 
constitution to Congress for ratification without referring it to the 
voters of Kansas for their acceptance or rejection. In short the 
President was for making Kansas a slave state regardless of the will 
of the inhabitants. This was the very opposite of popular sovereignty. 

At the beginning of the session of 1857 Senator Douglas called 
on the President and warned him that he opposed the plan of admitting 
Kansas on the pending constitution unless the same should be ratified 
by a vote of the territory. The interview was a heated one. When 
Douglas threw down the gauntlet by declaring that he would oppose 
the policy of the President to the bitter end, the President sternly 
reminded him that no Democrat ever yet had differed from an 
administration of his own choice without being crushed. To this 
Douglas replied that he wished the President to remember that General 
Jackson was dead. On the following day, in a three-hour speech, 
he denounced the convention on the floor of the Senate, declaring that 
while he did not care whether slavery was voted down or voted up, 
he did want a free choice made by the people of Kansas. His 
sense of honor, consistency and abiding faith in the justice of the 
great principle of popular sovereignty prompted him to insist that 
the constitution of a territory should not receive the sanction of Con- 
gress unless it represented the popular will. 

While it was apparent that the majority in Kansas was over- 
whelmingly against the convention which proposed the constitution, 
the President was insistent and in a message to Congress recommended 
the admission of Kansas with the slave constitution, declaring that 
Kansas was as much a slave state then as Georgia or South Carolina. 
Friends of the convention confidently maintained that Congress had 
no alternative but to accept its provisions. To this Douglas replied 
that it was the right and duty of Congress to prevent the admission 
of Kansas except on such a constitution as its people approved. 

The situation in which Senator Douglas now found himself was 
one of the most unique, alarming and remarkable that ever confronted 

109 



a man in our national life. As the leader of the Senate, on the 
question of the greatest public interest and concern, he had broken 
with the administration which represented his own party. The Presi- 
dent, for this rash act, sought to crush him ; the party press was 
turned against him ; his political friends in Illinois, who had been 
favored by the federal appointments, were turned out of office to 
make places for his enemies ; he was denounced as a traitor, renegade 
and deserter. In March, 1858, he rose from a sick bed to make his 
final appeal against the measure. The announcement that he would 
speak had attracted a great gathering of spectators to the Senate. 
They came in the early morning and refused to leave their seats upon 
learning that Douglas would not speak until evening. Demand for 
room was such that the ladies were admitted to the floor of the Senate. 
In this, one of his most eloquent speeches, he declared his independence 
as a Senator and his right to act independently of the executive and 
not at his dictation. With dramatic effect he declared that official 
position had no charms for him when deprived of that freedom 
of thought and action which becomes a gentleman and a Senator. 

He was unable to break the forces of the administration 
sufficiently to defeat the measure in the Senate, but his efforts had 
borne fruit at the other end of the capitol where the House voted 
to submit the constitution to the people of Kansas. From a committee 
of compromise a bill, known as the English bill, was submitted, which 
provided for a grant of public lands to Kansas in case the Lecompton 
constitution was endorsed by the voters of the territory. If the vote 
favored the constitution then Kansas was to be admitted as a slave 
state on the proclamation of the President. Douglas refused to vote 
for the committee's bill on the ground that it held out a bribe to the 
voters of Kansas. The bill passed, however, but by mid-summer 
Kansas had recorded nearly ten thousand votes against the land 
ordinance and proposed constitution. The administration had failed 
to make Kansas a slave state and Douglas had triumphed. 

In spite of the efforts of the administration to ruin his political 
career, in the spring of 1858, the Democratic convention of Illinois 
unqualifiedly endorsed Douglas for United States Senator. His term 
was about to expire. In June of that year the Republican convention 
named i\braham Lincoln for United States Senator. An antagonist 

110 



was about to meet Douglas more formidable than any with whom he 
had measured swords in the halls of Congress. A new truth was 
brought forward by this opponent, expressed in words which the 
gathering years have given the force of a solemn judgment : "A house 
divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government 
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
or all the other." Douglas's eyes came across these words as he read 
the speech of his rival on his return to Illinois from Washington and 
they made such an impression on his mind that in his first address he 
discussed their meaning and rarely afterwards failed to refer to 
them during the debate over the senatorship. Did this mean that war 
was to be made upon slavery until it was exterminated ? 

The reception that was given Douglas this time by the City of 
Chicago was in striking contrast to his welcome after his return follow- 
ing the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In the place of tolling 
bells, flags at half mast and an angry mob, he was met by a special train 
and received with every sign of popular enthusiasm. In a carriage 
drawn by six horses, under military escort, amid the booming of 
cannon and the shouts of thousands in his praise, with banners flutter- 
ing in the breeze and in the light of fireworks and illumination he 
entered his beloved city. 

The slavery question was about to be argued out on the prairies 
of Illinois. The two disputants could not have been more unlike. 
One had gone to Illinois from the northern state of Vermont, the 
other from the southern state of Kentucky. One was a Democrat, 
the other a Whig. They had always been political opponents. One 
had outstripped all rivals in his rapid advancement to political fame 
and was the best known and most distinguished member of his party; 
the other had held but few offices and for ten years had been in private 
life and was not much known outside his own state. One had re- 
ceived his inspiration in the rush and whirl of active affairs at the 
national capitol ; the other had formed his political opinions while 
riding the circuit in the practice of law. One was allied with the rich 
and powerful influences of the nation ; the other was better known 
by the common people. One had the gift of mental grasp that worked 

111 



by intuition and could argue out a questkm to its last analysis without 
r^ecticm or forethought ; the other learned slowly and stated his ail- 
ment wdl only when he had given it patient consideration. In place 
of the assurance of the one was the brooding melancfac^ of the 
other. Douglas spoke with the utmost readiness and was gifted 
with all the graces of the orator. Linct^ spc^e slowly, and except 
when aroused, was awkward in manner and gesture. Douglas was 
almost a dwarf in height although now thick-set and solid in Bppe2.T- 
ance; lincoln was tall and slight. Douglas had a deep bass voice of 
great carrying power : Lincoln's was a high falsetto when in use before 
great audiences. Douglas wore the clothes of fashionable Washing- 
ton; in this regard he was immaculate. Lincoln's were ill-fitting, 
much worn and unbectraiing. One was an ardent disciple of party 
platforms and creeds : the other was moved by the moral issues that 
were involved in pohtical questions. 

When Lincx^ challenged Douglas to the joint ddjates he had 
nothing to lose and everything to gain. If he failed he was no worse 
off than before, but if he won over such a man as Senator Douglas 
such a triumph could not fail to bring him into great national 
prominence. This was the result. WTien the debates began Lincoln 
was not well known outside of his own state. Wlien they ended he 
had a national r^>atation. It was Senator Douglas that gave 
prcHninence to the discussion. Ke could not discuss slavery, or any 
odier naticmal question, without attracting the whole cotmtry. -\t 
every fireside his speeches were read. In this way Lincoln received 
his introduction to the American people. His speeches were reported 
with those of Douglas and thus his fame wen: izrcad and the 
presidency was made possible for him. It is not likely that he would 
have received the nomination had it not been for the ^e'r^ires. 

The time was favorable for Lincoln. The Re; . : r. party was 
organized and had gathered to its banners all the oi^-5ir.g forces to 
DenMxrracy in Illinois. I: 'r.id declared against the further extension 
of slavery in the new e-- ■ -f= The recent measures for the settle- 
ment of the vexed cu ot had the desired ettect. Instead 
of peace popular sovereignty had brought bloodshed to Kansas and 
the end was not yet. President Buchanan's pro-slavery inangcu^. 
the Dred Scott decision and the repeal of the Missouri Comoromise 



furnished material for a skilful argument that there was a conspiracy 
to extend slavery. The administration was opposed to Douglas and 
he had to fight at all times with an enemy in the rear. 

In the questions and answers, the personalities, the give-and-take 
of the discussion, which occurred at seven points in the state, ranging 
from the north to the south, the fortunes of the two disputants were 
very much alike. In the early part of the debate Douglas seemed 
to have the advantage and in the latter part Lincoln made gains. 
The debates attracted large audiences who listened with the closest 
attention. The great issue in the debate was a moral one. Lincoln 
took the position that slavery was morally wrong and so its further 
extension should be prevented. Douglas took no sides on the moral 
question. To him it was a question of practical politics. Lincoln 
said he was not in favor of making voters or jurymen or office-holders 
or even citizens of negroes, but he did expect them to be freemen; he 
did not expect, however, in the most peaceful way that slavery would 
be ultimately extinguished in less than a hundred years at least, but 
he believed it would occur in the best way for both races in God's 
good time. Douglas made a forcible and comprehensive statement of 
his side of the case by declaring that the people of a state or territory 
were civilized as well as he, had consciences as well as he and were 
accountable to God and their posterity and not to him. It was for 
them to decide, therefore, the moral and religious right of the slavery 
question for themselves within their own limits. He cared more for 
the principle of self-government, the right of the people to rule, 
than for all the negroes in Christendom. He would not endanger 
the perpetuity of the Union nor blot out the great inalienable right 
of the white man for all the negroes that ever existed. In view of 
Douglas's attitude on the slavery question, the opposition of the 
administration and its office holders in Illinois, and the combination 
of all factions outside of the Democratic party against him, his re- 
election was a great triumph. 

The popular regard in which he was held and his capacity to 
attract the masses was never better illustrated than at this time. 
Immediately following the canvass in Illinois he visited the South, in 
part for the purpose of here improving his health and in part for 
business. He endeavored to attract no attention but his approach 

113 



became known as he neared Memphis and New Orleans and demonstra- 
tions were made in these cities, where he was welcomed by throngs 
of people who drew forth speeches from him at each city. A similar 
experience occurred in New York on his return from the South, 
and while here a delegation from Philadelphia called on him and 
invited him to deliver an address in Independence Hall, whither he 
repaired en route to Washington, speaking in the old Cradle of Liberty. 

Douglas's activities were not confined to his labors as Senator. 
At a fortunate time he made large purchases of real estate in Chicago 
which so advanced in value as to give him a substantial property. In 
the midst of great political excitement, midway between the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise and the debates with Lincoln, in 1856, 
he gave the site of about ten acres in the City of Chicago for the 
institution of learning known as the University of Chicago. He was 
the President of the Board of Trustees and devoted much of his 
thought toward the close of his career to this institution, to which 
he had contributed a large portion of his property in order to place 
within the reach of the young men of Chicago and the West the ad- 
vantages of a higher education. He hoped and intended that it should 
be a great University. He had a broad conception of what an institu- 
tion of this kind should be and did every thing in his power to bring 
it to a high state of efficiency. Had he lived his ambition would 
undoubtedly been realized. He likewise took an active interest in the 
work of the Smithsonian Institution. He became a member of the 
Board of Regents and retained the office until his death. 

Senator Douglas was an ardent advocate of all just measures for 
the development of the country. To this end he gave his aid to such 
measures of legislation as looked to the granting of public lands for 
railroads and internal improvements. He was the first to propose 
a bill for a grant of land to settlers who should cultivate it for a 
series of years. In this way he believed the railroads and the settlers 
would be wealth producers for the nation. 

Douglas had an honorable ambition to be President, but like Clay, 
Webster and Blaine he held too conspicuous a place in the public 
councils to attain that end. The halls of Congress have not proved 
to be the best place from which to start a presidential campaign. An 
important part in legislative aflFairs is attended by the making of 

114 



enemies. This was the case with Douglas. Franklin Pierce, who had 
retired from the Senate to practice law in New Hampshire, but who 
distinguished himself in the Mexican War, was preferred to Douglas 
in 1852 and Buchanan, who was at the Court of St. James when 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed, was chosen in preference to 
him in 1856. As early as 1840 the delegation from Illinois presented 
the name of Douglas to the national Democratic convention. He 
was then thirty-seven, the youngest statesman up to that time to whom 
had fallen such an honor. In 1852 he had ninety-two votes in the 
convention of his party and in 1856 one hundred and twenty-two. 
Each time he retired in the interest of harmony and earnestly sup- 
ported the nominee. When the convention of 1860 approached it was 
apparent that the Northwest would be for him and a larger following 
was predicted than for any other man in the Democratic party. The 
nomination would be acceptable provided he could assume it on prin- 
ciples which he believed to be sound, but he would not be a candidate 
under any circumstances upon a platform that he could not con- 
scientiously execute. The southern members of the party demanded 
a platform that should provide that neither Congress nor the Legisla- 
ture of a territory could impair the constitutional rights of property in 
slaves therein ; that it was the duty of Congress to provide adequate 
protection to slave property and that the people of a territory could 
pass on the question of slavery only when they adopted a state 
constitution. Such a platform Douglas would not stand upon but 
would insist on the principle of popular sovereignty as he had ad- 
vocated it. 

The convention met at Charleston. It was apparent that the 
northern and southern members could not agree on a platform. 
The latter would withdraw if Douglas was nominated and the former 
if the platform declared for slavery in the territories. Douglas's 
platform was adopted by a substantial majority, whereupon the con- 
vention broke up to meet at Baltimore in June, where Douglas was 
afterwards nominated. He is the only man of Vermont birth to have 
received the nomination for the presidency. Before his nomination 
the southern wing of the party had withdrawn from the convention. 
They formed a convention and nominated John C. Breckenridge of 
Kentucky for the presidency. The platforms of the two conventions 

115 



expressed the respective views of the two factions on the question of 
slavery. Bell and Everett represented another ticket known as the 
Constitutional Unionists and Lincoln and Hamlin the Republican 
ticket. 

Douglas resisted the temptation for a time to go on the stump 
but finally found himself making speeches, especially in the South. 
It must have been apparent to him that he was not going to win 
the election. But this did not deter him from a southern trip where 
he probably hoped to do good for the Union if not for himself. At 
Norfolk someone in the audience asked him if the southern states 
would be justified in leaving the Union if Lincoln was elected Presi- 
dent, to which he emphatically answered no, declaring in explanation 
that the election of any man to the presidency of the American people 
in conformity with the Constitution of the United States would not 
justify any attempt at dissolving this glorious confederacy. Then they 
asked him whether if the southern states seceded before an overt act 
against their constitutional rights would Douglas advise or vindicate 
resistance to the decision. His answer was that he would do all in 
his power to aid the government in maintaining the supremacy of the 
laws against all resistance to them, come from whatever quarter it 
might. "I tell them No," he said, "never on earth." At Raleigh he 
declared he would hang every man higher than Haman who would 
take arms against the Union. He said that as much as he loved 
his children he did not desire to see them survive this Union. He 
was opposed to any compromise on the question of his platform ; he 
had fought twenty-seven battles since he entered public life and had 
never yet traded with nominations or submitted to treachery. He 
said he did not believe that it was in his interest as a public man to 
be President at this time, but that he loved the Union and there was 
no sacrifice on earth that he would not make to preserve it. He told 
the people of St. Louis that he had come to make an appeal to them in 
behalf of the Union and for the peace of the country. At Memphis 
and Mobile he urged the men of the South to stay in the Union. 
Douglas received more than a million votes in the field that gave 
Lincoln his election, and though he carried but one state and had a 
few delegates from another his total vote fell short of that of Lincoln 
by only about four hundred thousand. 

116 



Douglas realized that Lincoln was not well known and that in 
his own party there were many men who doubted his capacity to rule 
the nation. He, therefore, made haste to say that the man whom 
the Republicans had elected was a very able and a very honest man. 
He took a great interest in Lincoln's welfare during his early days in 
Washington, laying aside all political asperities and personal prejudices 
in his desire to save the nation. In the way of legislation it was 
proposed that a committee of thirteen be appointed, as in 1850, whose 
first duty should be to restore the Missouri Compromise. This failed. 
Then an irrepealable constitutional provision was brought forward to 
banish the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the arena 
of federal politics. "Are we prepared in our hearts," he said, "for 
war with out brethren and kindred? I confess I am not." He was 
ready, he said, to settle the present difficulties for the preservation of 
the Union as though he had entertained no opinion theretofore on the 
slavery question. He proposed a new fugitive slave law, but it was 
not listened to. Kansas was admitted as a free state, just as Douglas 
believed it should be, and Colorado, Dakota and Nevada were or- 
ganized as territories with no provisions as to slavery, exactly accord- 
ing to the principle of popular sovereignty. When it is considered 
that this was done by a Republican administration is it any wonder 
that Douglas claimed the credit of being right and his opponents 
wrong in fighting him on this issue? He induced the House to pro- 
pose an amendment to the constitution denying to Congress the power 
to interfere in the domestic institutions of any state. He was con- 
vinced from this that the Republicans had abandoned here their 
aggressive policy in the territories and were willing to give guarantees 
in the states. 

As early as February he became satisfied that the prospect of 
saving the Union by legislation was not bright, and with the absence 
of any personal pique he determined to see Lincoln to discuss the 
situation. Three days after Lincoln's arrival at the capitol he called 
on him and on this and the following day they discussed the critical 
problems of the hour. He urged the President-elect to immediately 
call a constitutional convention for an amendment such as he had 
proposed and in this Senator Seward agreed. This Lincoln did not 
care to do without further consideration. The amendment limiting 



the powers of Congress over the states was, however, afterwards 
adopted. Douglas persuaded Lincoln to add a paragraph to his 
inaugural address in which the President stated that he had no objec- 
tion that an amendment providing that the federal government should 
never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states should be 
made express and irrevocable. 

At the inaugural Douglas took great pains to place himself at 
the President's side, both for the purpose of being of any possible 
assistance to his chief and to assure the people of his friendship and 
loyalty. Indeed he performed the humble service of holding the 
President's hat throughout the delivery of the address. He and Mrs. 
Douglas, a second wife — a southern lady of wonderful beauty and 
personal charms — bestowed every possible attention upon the Lincoln 
family at the inaugural ball by displaying many acts of courtesy to 
them. 

On the sixth of March, from the floor of the Senate, Douglas 
defended the inaugural address, not by throwing himself into the 
arms of the administration but by unquahfied praise of those parts 
which appealed to him as being for the good of the Union. He 
rejoiced in the passage in which the President promised to use his 
best efforts to effect a peaceful solution of the national troubles and a 
restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections. While declaring 
himself as being generally opposed to the President's party and policy 
he declared he was with him in his efforts to preserve the Union. 

He was at first reluctant to commit himself on the Fort Sumter 
situation. In answer to a question by Senator Mason as to what ought 
to be done if the garrison was starving he said that if the Senator 
had voted right at the last election he would have been in condition 
perhaps to have told him authoritatively. He ceased to be optimistic 
when Sumter was fired upon. It was suggested that he make some 
public statement of his attitude on the present troubles for its effect 
on the members of the Democratic party, more than a million of whom 
had shown their confidence in him by their ballots. A cordial and 
earnest consultation followed. The President read to him his 
proclamation calling for 75,000 troops. Douglas told him that he 
should call for 200,000. When this had been said they moved to a map 
of the United States and here stood in whispered conference, absence 

118 



of resentment and defeated ambition on the part of one, patient teach 
ableness and self-mastery on the part of the other. 

Douglas made a public statement announcing the interview with 
the President and declaring that he was prepared to fully sustain the 
executive in the exercise of all his constitutional functions to preserve 
the Union, maintain the government and defend the federal capitol. 
To his friends he said there could be but two parties — the party of 
patriots and the party of traitors — and that they belonged to the first. 

After this Douglas and the President were in frequent consulta- 
tions. The former gave valuable advice about bringing troops into 
Washington. Troubles for the Union cause were brewing in southern 
Illinois, always of pro-slavery tendencies, and the President advised 
that the services of Senator Douglas were needed in that quarter and 
dispatched him thither. This gave rise to a report that he had gone 
to raise a great army in the Northwest. He was now in the deepest 
confidencies of the administration and could probably have had a 
place suitable to his talents and executive ability had he been spared 
for it. But unhappily fate had not so decreed. His time on earth 
was to be brief. 

He left Washington for his mission to Illinois but missed his train 
at Bellaire, Ohio. Here he spoke for the Union to the men of Ohio 
and Virginia on the banks of the great river, urging them as a band 
of brothers to unite and rescue their government and its capitol and 
their country from its enemies. Looking out upon the Ohio he ex- 
claimed, "This great valley must never be divided. The Almighty 
has so arranged the valley and the plain and the watercourse as to 
show that this valley in all time shall remain one and indivisible." 
This speech bore immediate fruit for within thirty days the Union 
men had organized and begun the campaign which brought West 
Virginia into the Union. At Columbus he was called from his room 
at night to speak a parting word to the boys who were to go to the 
front and as his deep voice sounded forth a message to them a solemn 
amen arose from the lips of his listeners. His first speech in his own 
state was made at Springfield. It seemed important that this 
should be a telling blow for the Union cause. Senator CoUum — then 
the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Illinois — describes 
how his audience succumbed to the magic of his eloquence and the 

119 



irresistible logic of his brilliant mind. At a dramatic point during its 
delivery the Stars and Stripes were brought in, when Douglas 
exclaimed, his voice raised to a high pitch and carrying to the remotest 
listener, "When hostile armies — when hostile armies are marching, 
under new and odious banners against the government of our country, 
the shortest way to peace is the most stupendous and unanimous 
preparation for war It is a war of defence of the govern- 
ment which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from our patriotic 
fathers, in defence of those great rights of freedom of trade, com- 
merce, transit and intercourse from the center to the circumference 
of our great continent. May we so conduct the war, if a collision 
must come that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows 

our hearts and who will justify our every act There is 

no path of ambition open to me in a divided country .... but 
I believe in my conscience that it is a duty that we owe to ourselves 
and our children and to our God, to protect the government and that 
flag from every assailant, be he who he may." 

At Chicago he spoke at the Wigwam — filled now as when Lincoln 
was nominated the year before with ten thousand people. There 
is a greatness about the occasion that is pathetic. The place is one 
that saw the organization completed which placed his rival for the 
presidency in nomination. It heard the patriotic resolutions of the 
successful party in the campaign of 1860. It resounded with the 
oratory of the great chieftains of the political organization that had 
raised Lincoln to the presidency and had sent Douglas to defeat. 
To such a place and to an audience made up of men who were in 
considerable part there the year before Douglas had come, a defeated 
candidate in a national election for an office to which he had aspired 
with honorable ambition, a partisan in violent opposition to the creeds 
of the successful party, he had come as a patriot at the bidding of his 
rival to lend his gifted voice and powerful influence to the cause of 
the Union. Does this leave any doubt about the greatness and 
patriotism of Stephen A. Douglas? Again in an eloquent address 
he urged his countrymen to stand by the Union and to defend the 
flag. "Arms have been raised," he said, "war is levied .... 
there are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for 
the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, 

120 



only patriots or traitors." .... And then thinking no doubt of 
friends and family ties in the South, he said, "But we must remember 
certain restraints on our action even in time of war. We are a 
Christian people and the war must be prosecuted in a manner 
recognized by Christian nations. We must not violate constitutional 
rights. The innocent must not suffer nor women and children be 
victims." 

Exhausted from the efforts and anxieties which he had lately 
experienced he was overcome with an illness which lingered for 
several weeks and ended in a delirium, during which his thoughts 
were still of his country and its preservation from its enemies. Once 
he was heard to exclaim, "Telegraph to the President and let the 
column move on." On the return of consciousness at the last, his 
wife bent over him and asked him if there was any message he wished 
to send to his sons. He whispered, "Tell them to obey the laws and 
support the Constitution of the United States." These were his last 
words. 

With a pomp befitting an emperor the great statesman was 
buried beside Lake Michigan. The spot is close by the University 
which he founded. It is beside the central highway which was created 
by his supreme effort. It is in the midst of the imperial City of 
Chicago which loved him and upon which he reflected so much glory. 
Here to the requiem of the beating waves it is well that he should 
sleep. Above the fitting spot, tall and imposing and crowned by the 
statue of the orator, statesman and patriot, stands the column erected 
by the state of his adoption to remind his own and succeeding genera- 
tions what manner of man he was. And we of his native state on 
the centenary of his birth and fifty-two years after his death in such 
a blaze of glory do well to honor his memory. His great talents com- 
mand our admiration. His services for his country's expansion and 
development merit our respect and praise. If mistakes were made, 
let us attribute these to a broad, though erring statesmanship, and not 
to selfish ambition. And whatever faults may have been his and 
whatever prejudices may have existed, let these be forgotten in the 
thought that Stephen A. Douglas stood side by side and hand in hand 
with Abraham Lincoln, as long as life was spared to him, in defence 
of the American Union. 

121 




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